


The Alto

by Meltha



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: F/M, Gen, Historical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-10
Updated: 2011-11-12
Packaged: 2017-10-25 22:11:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 60,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meltha/pseuds/Meltha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darla doesn't remember much of her human life, but it is a story that needs to be told.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Abigail

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first section in "The Quartet," which will, if my plans work out, eventually encompass the lives of all four members of the Scourge of Europe.
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters are owned by Mutant Enemy (Joss Whedon), a wonderfully creative company whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.
> 
> Author's Note: I have never been so incredibly nervous about a fic as I am about this project. Bear with me on this one.

  
_1584: Devonshire, England_   


It began in the way all stories begin: with pain. The woman's cries echoed through the small room, drowning out the crackling of the fire and the tempest that was breaking furiously against the roof over her head. Hours passed in this way, the rain lashing against the bedraggled thatch roof, finding its way slowly into the room through a labyrinthine path and pattering onto the dirt floor, turning it to mud. Suddenly, the sound of the quiet dripping and the rain were the only sounds in the room. After a long moment's pause of almost preternatural silence, a new cry filled the space, weaker, higher and less coherent than the woman's.

"Ye've birthed a girl-child," croaked the old midwife in a voice made harsh with years of drink. "All the same, tis a fine, fair bairn."

The young woman, her brown hair plastered to her head with sweat, reached her trembling arms forward to receive her daughter. The tiny parcel of human flesh was given to her none too gently by the old crone, and the mother looked upon her child for the first time, the little one still clotted in the bloody gore of birth. The babe was like a doll, her eyes flitting open briefly to reveal irises as blue as a midsummer sky.

"Call her father in, please," the woman said softly, her hoarse voice barely a whisper.

"Nay, ye'll not want that, not until ye and the child have prettied up somewhat, methinks," the midwife scoffed loudly.

"No. Now, please," she insisted quietly.

Something in the tone of her voice made the old woman do as she was asked. With a grunt, she lurched her way down the dark, fetid hallway and into a room where a young, fair-haired man, his forehead pressed against his palms, sat in a battered chair before the fire. At the sound of footsteps, his head abruptly lifted, his face a mask of anticipation and concern.

"Is she...?"

"Tis over. Ye haven't a son, though. She's callin' for ye."

The man rose so quickly from his chair that it was nearly knocked into the fire in his haste. His feet took him to the room as quickly as thought, it seemed. When he caught sight of the picture before him, his breath held still.

The fire had nearly gone out by now, and the illumination in the room was dim, the single, cracked and leaking window occasionally flaring with lightning to expose the scene to sharper view. On the tattered bed lay his beloved wife Rebecca, cradling his firstborn child in her arms. It should have been a picture of pure happiness and comfort after all the two of them had endured this last year, but something was wrong.

Rebecca was desperately pale, even in this light. The time of her confinement had been marked with illnesses and complications, yet he'd always assumed that once the child arrived, their child, all would be put right. The bloom would return to her cheeks again, and all would be well.

But the room smelled not only of birth but of death.

"Richard," she said softly, calling him back from his thoughts, "take her."

With feet that suddenly seemed made of lead, he stumbled towards the bed and awkwardly took the baby from her. Somehow, the small body molded perfectly into his tender grasp, and in spite of himself, he gave the child a bittersweet smile.

"Rebecca..." he began, but she silenced him with a look.

His wife's breathing grew louder and slower as the minutes wore on, and her eyes were beginning to glaze. He sat gently beside her on the bed, holding the child tightly, his gaze never straying from the pale face before him.

"Her name is Abigail," she murmured in a voice so soft it could hardly be heard. "Tell her she is loved. Promise me... she will know... love..."

"So long as I live, this child will be treasured. She will know her worth, Rebecca. I swear it."

"She is... pretty... isn't she?" she whispered with a note of pride.

"As lovely as daisies in the spring, my leman. She'll be a beauty, like her mother," he said with certainty, his strong voice belying the tears that crept into his eyes.

They stayed like that for many long minutes in silence, but by the time the church bells tolled midnight, Rebecca's sightless, staring eyes were gently closed by her husband's hand. The child wailed aloud as though in grief, and the midwife, used to such endings, merely toddled through the back door drunkenly, intent upon receiving her pay nonetheless in the morning.

Richard kept his word to his wife, cherishing their child with a love rarely seen lavished upon daughters all the days of his life, but those days were cut short. Not five months after the birth of Abigail, the plague swept through the town like wildfire, cutting a wide swath through the people, especially the poor.

Richard died upon the third day of his illness, and Abigail, who had escaped the ravages of the disease somehow, was delivered, at his request, to the home of a great lord in London. The messenger who brought the child to the house bore a letter written by the child's father with a remarkably clear and learned hand, and it was delivered to the lord himself. After some brief discussion between the master of the house and his wife, the baby was delivered into the kitchens of the house and left to cry on the hearthstone until one of the maids found time to feed her between the chores of cooking and cleaning.

From that day forth, the child Abigail was brought up in the manor house of the lord, a foundling charity child of the plague, raised to be a humble and obedient maid for her ladyship. Fate, however, had very different plans for the infant girl who would one day come to be known as Darla.


	2. Abbie

_1594: London, England_

"Wake up, slug-a-bed!" came the harsh voice as a swift kick connected with the child's backside, knocking her forcefully from her small pallet onto the stone kitchen floor with a thud. "Tis near dawn, and Mistress will be wanting to break her fast nigh on only an hour hence! Ye know yer duty, so set about it!"

"Aye, Nellie," said the child drowsily as she pulled herself from the tattered remnants of an old blanket that was more hole than whole.

With a shudder of disgust, she shook out her skirts to send the roaches that had taken up residence there during the night scuttling back into the shadows. No matter, she thought grimly. They would only come again tonight. Her face was nearly as black with grime as the enormous soot-darkened hearth that took up most of one wall of the kitchen, and she could see that the fire that should have been burning there was now only vaguely hot, light gray ash. She stuffed her feet into a pair of pattens at least three sizes too large for her and tromped into the courtyard to bring in kindling and logs from the woodpile. Normally, it would have taken her three trips to bring back the needed supply, and though she was still exhausted and aching from having to wash dishes until nearly two in the morning because of a ball the lord and lady of the house had thrown the night before, she thought it best to risk the splinters and sore back from bringing in the load all at once. Nellie's ugly face was looking murderous this morning, and she could guess why. A rather large portion of the leftover ale had found its way down the cook's throat last evening, which had led to her falling asleep and leaving Abbie, the scullery maid, to do all the washing up. The old woman obviously had awakened with a horrible headache. This wasn't an unusual circumstance, and the girl knew from experience that the slightest provocation would lead to a beating with the handle of the broom that stood beside the fireplace.

Unfortunately, provocation proved to be quite unnecessary.

"Abbie, ye foul slut! Move yer worthless arse faster, girl! I'll not tolerate gold-bricking from the likes of a fatherless guttersnipe!" the older woman hollered as she grabbed the child by the ear painfully and threw her across the room. "Now, get the plates down from the cupboard and fix up a tray for her Ladyship right quick or I'll tan the living hide off ye."

Abbie didn't bother to waste time with a reply as she scrambled to do the cook's bidding as quickly as possible, though she mentally hurled every crude name she could think of at her. In what seemed to be a heartbeat, the dishes were laid out in anticipation of the meal. She faltered for a moment, not sure if pointing out the oversight would be worse than letting it go.

"Nellie, won't his Lordship and the young Mistress also be wanting their trays?" she asked from the opposite side of the room, keeping her distance as much as possible.

She was lucky. The heavy iron griddle missed her this time. Nellie really must have drunk more ale than Abbie had thought for her aim to be so poor.

"Don't ye backtalk me, baggage! They'll not be up afore mid-morning after last night's festivities. Her Ladyship will only rise so early since she must meet with her cousin, the Lady Davenhilt, this morn," the cook fairly screamed. "Now, bring in the eggs and start to frying the bacon and making the bread as the fire should be hot enough by now."

With that, the cook did Abbie the great favor of passing out across the table, thankfully sparing the tray. With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, the girl quickly set about putting the morning meal in order, but not before being sorely tempted to tie Nellie's apron strings to the chair once again. However, she remembered all too clearly the price she'd paid for that last time; her left shoulder still pained her in cold weather. It wasn't worth the trouble.

The meal was done in barely enough time to bring to her Ladyship, and still Nellie hadn't stirred from her place. The cook was still breathing Abbie could see, so her luck hadn't been perfect, but still, it was a vast improvement over most mornings. The child's hands shook slightly as she lifted the heavy wooden tray heaped with bacon and eggs. Her empty stomach growled loudly at the scent; she would eat in a few hours, but it would be significantly less than this.

The long walk up the main stairs and into her Ladyship's chambers was made slowly so she would not to trip and spill the food, a circumstance that was sure to cause her own breakfast to be taken away for carelessness. Abbie scowled at the long row of portraits that hung in the hall, all of them ancestors of the family, and all of them looking decidedly smug and disdainful. She had to fight the urge to throw a fistful of jam-slathered bread at the painting of the current Lord Worthshire's portrait, which captured his unhandsome face and oxen-like physique so well that he had nearly refused payment to the artist, but she managed to contain herself.

With a soft but firm kick, Abbie knocked on the door of Lady Alice Worthshire's bedchamber.

"Good morrow, my lady," called Abbie in what she hoped was an acceptable tone.

"Enter," said the woman's voice sleepily, and the scullery maid pushed open the door and brought the tray over to the bed where Lady Alice still lay, one arm thrown over her eyes to block the sunlight pouring through the window. Lord Henry Worthshire kept a separate apartment to himself at the other end of the hall, as was often the custom so as not to seem vulgar to the servants. It was also highly convenient for Lord Henry to smuggle his various female companions back and forth without the notice of his wife, who was, of course, fully aware of what was happening under her own roof, though she never deigned to raise a complaint so long as he didn't parade the women before her.

Lady Worthshire herself was a tall woman with reddish brown hair that was currently streaming across the pillow beside her. Abbie supposed that she was thought quite beautiful by most of the nobility, but there was something strangely pinched about her face, almost as though one always expected her to be about to sneeze. Her mouth was just a shade too hard and her eyes a touch too narrow not to communicate a definite coldness. Still, as mistresses of a household went, she hadn't treated Abbie horribly, but the girl did not entirely trust her.

"Put the tray on the table, Abbie," she said tiredly. "Where is Cook?"

"She hath stumbled upon a loose stone in the kitchen flooring and nurses a swollen foot. She sent me to serve thee, my lady," Abbie invented quickly. Lying was a skill that was important to master when working with Nellie if one wanted to remain healthy.

Throughout the meal, Abbie waited upon Lady Alice, pouring more wine for her and scuttling away finished dishes until finally the tray lay empty and her Ladyship appeared somewhat revived. The meal had taken very little time as she had eaten with great zest and speed.

"Run you to the courtyard and draw forth a fresh basin of water for me to wash my face and hands with, girl," the woman ordered offhandedly as she wandered to her wardrobe, "and call the maid to bring it to me and to bedeck me for the day. When you have finished this, then you shall awaken Millicent."

"Yes, Lady Worthshire," she said as she carried the slightly lighter tray from the room.

Millicent was the young Mistress of the house, a maiden of some sixteen years, and the ball the evening before had been in her honor, specifically with an eye towards drawing a suitor. Abbie knew that there would likely be a wedding in a few months at most; Millicent was at a ripe age for marriage, came from a noble and wealthy family, and her beauty was really quite astounding. She was slim and blonde with large blue eyes, a noble forehead, and a very regal bearing. The ball was a mere formality.

It happened that Abbie needed to pass Millicent's chamber on her way back to the kitchens, and she decided that perhaps she would simply finish the job of awakening the slumbering daughter now rather than having to climb the stairs once again after rousing the chambermaid. It was chance that made her do it, but it was a chance upon which hinged many fates. She set the tray down in the hall and knocked with her knuckles on the door.

"Mistress Millicent, good morrow," she called, not waiting for a response as she swung upon the door. "Your lady mother begs you to rise and..."

There was a loud shriek of shock, and this was everyone's undoing. Abbie clamped her hand over her mouth, but the damage was already done. Mistress Millicent was most definitely not alone. Her companion was the youngest son of Sir Grashill, Frederick, and the scullery maid had happened to catch the pair as Master Fredrick was proving his ardor to the decidedly no-longer-maiden Millicent for what was to be the last of three times since he'd climbed her trellis window at midnight.

"You stupid little fool," the compromised lady hissed between her teeth as racing footsteps grew louder with each passing moment. Master Fredrick Grashill, for his part, sprang from the bed with remarkable speed for someone who had slept but little the night before and began pulling on his leggings.

It was this scene which greeted Lady Alice's eyes as she sped through the door, and her mouth hung open in shock for a split second before her face set determinedly and she shut the door.

"You," she barked quickly at Frederick, "conceal thyself beneath the bed and move not one of thy muscles if thou wishest to retain all the parts of a man. Millicent, speak not a word."

He dove at once beneath the small bed frame, pulling his jerkin quickly after him. No sooner did his foot disappear beneath the counterpane than the door burst open again and Lord Henry appeared in the room.

"What has passed here?" he asked angrily. "I did assume that robbers had tried to steal my dear daughter, the jewel of my house, but I find naught but the scullery maid."

If he had perhaps said some other thing, Lady Worthshire might not have hit upon the plan, but as things stood, she saw a way to save all.

"Not steal thy daughter, good husband, no, but steal, aye, that is right. Tis this wench who reeks of filth that is the culprit," she said quickly, her eyes scanning the room quickly for her quarry.

"How now?" asked Lord Henry. "What say you?"

Lady Alice, if women had been allowed on the stage, would have made a marvelous actress. The scene she played was brilliant, and her quick handwork would have made her a wonderful conjurer of tricks. She placed her hands on the back of the chair that sat before Millicent's dressing table and leaned towards her husband with a look of perfect earnestness.

"Would thou believe, dear husband, that this one who appears to be a mere babe, who we have coddled and cosseted and treated with all Christian charity in her fatherless condition, didst try to steal the very necklace that thy daughter wore last eve? When Millicent did surprise the little sinner, she did scream in terror at being found out."

Abbie was completely confused. Of course she had seen the monumentally large necklace that Millicent had worn to the ball last night. Set with half a dozen rubies and a great pearl all fixed in heavy gold, it was impossible to miss and had been chosen for her to wear as an advertisement of her family's fortunes. However, Abigail had never dreamed of even touching the thing. Frankly, she considered it ludicrously ugly despite its value, but besides this she had not been born a fool. It had been resting on the corner of the dressing table; she had seen it glinting brightly from its case out of the corner of her eye as Master Frederick had been burrowing under the bed.

But it was most definitely not there now.

"See for thyself, dearest Henry," Lady Alice said evenly as she stood behind Abbie and put a firm hand on her shoulder. "She hath hid it in the folds of her skirts."

"Is this truth, Abigail?" he asked sternly. "Dost thou confess this act?"

"Nay, sir," said the very confused child. "I have not taken the necklace. My lady must be mistaken in some wise."

"Then shake out thy skirts, child," he said.

Abbie was glad to comply with his order since it would prove her innocence, but she didn't count on Lady Alice's slight of hand. No sooner did Abbie take hold of her skirt and begin to shake it thoroughly when she felt the hand on her shoulder drop something down the back of her dress, something cold and scratchy that quickly fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

"You see!" cried Lady Alice triumphantly. "Twas there even as she did lie to thee!"

Lord Henry bent and picked up the shining golden necklace, staring at it furiously. He stood straight once more, then cracked the child sharply across the face with the back of his hand. Abbie was hurled to the floor by the force of the blow, and her lip began to bleed a small river across the stones. She was too dazed and terrified to speak.

"'Spare the rod, spoil the child,'" he shouted as his face turned purple. "I will not tolerate a liar and a thief in my household. Wife, send to the sheriff to see she is duly punished."

"Aye, I will, husband," she replied. "She shall not leave my sight until then."

"Tis well," said the man as he left the room. "I am right well pleased that twas caught now rather than after she had a chance to grow in her treachery. Who knows what else she may have done given time?"

Lady Alice waited a moment and then shut the door once more.

"Master Frederick, you shall robe yourself and leave with all quietness through the window. Do not think of returning here," she said coldly.

Frederick, who was still shaking a bit, put up no argument to this and disappeared at once.

"Millicent, thou hast nearly lost all this morn. Thy foolishness almost cost thee the hand of Sir Grashill's eldest son, Stephen. He did ask thy father for marriage to thee last night, and your father did consent. Had your father seen this, he would, fool that he is, have reneged upon this agreement out of honor and either forced thee to marry that wastrel or thrown thee out of doors. As it is, all is well. Thy marriage will take place in a fortnight, and if thou barest a child, all will think tis thy husband's."

"Aye, mother," Millicent said demurely. "I humbly thank thee for thy kindness."

"As for you, scullery maid," she said, rounding on Abbie, who still lay bleeding on the floor, "if you speak a word of what has passed here, e'en one, e'en to no one but the empty air or God Himself, I assure you, the trials you are about to go through shalt seem as a pleasant day in the fine air. Dost understand?"

Abbie nodded in terror as she saw the merciless anger in her ladyship's eyes. In later years she could never remember how they made their way from Millicent's chamber to the doorstep, but she did recall sitting utterly still upon the doorstep with Lady Alice hovering vengefully behind her, waiting for the maid to return with the sheriff. At some point, she had begun to shake violently and couldn't stop herself in spite of her ladyship's commands and slaps. She remembered being dimly aware of the rest of the household staff, even old Nellie, standing behind the pair of them in the entryway, looking down at her with expressions of varying interest. After what seemed ages, she saw a pair of unfamiliar, horse manure-stained black boots in front of her eyes, and she knew the sheriff had arrived.

"Lady Worthshire, your 'umble servant," said the man with a deep bow. "What's the trouble?"

"This ungrateful brat hath been caught in the very act of a great theft, and it is my wish that she be severely taught the error of her ways before her soul is so besmirched with sin that she is fit for naught but hell e'en at so young an age," said Lady Alice with a small show of sorrow as she dabbed at her completely dry eyes with her handkerchief.

"Indeed. Best to correct the fault in the young than see the fruits of it in the grown," said the man asked in a voice that sounded far too eager.

"Please," said Abbie, finding her voice at last, "I did nothing wrong! I beg thee mercy!"

"You see how the baggage lies?" said Lady Alice as she shook her head. "Tis a bad case. You must believe naught that she would say, the little perjurer."

"Aye, I know better than to listen to the likes of 'er, Lady Worthshire" he assured her. "How shall I deal with 'er?"

As the lady looked down upon the child before her, she knitted her brows together in consideration for a moment.

"I believe that the stocks are in order for full two days at the least," she responded firmly. "Dost thou believe this shall suffice?"

"Aye. Twill put her right, I have no doubt," he said as he picked the child up savagely and dragged her off through the street.

It took only a small time for the people who were going about their business near one of the city's many markets to hear the small girl pleading and yelling at the top of her lungs as the sheriff pulled her onward towards the center of the market square where the stocks sat. A fairly good-sized and very curious crowd, in fact, trailed behind the pair by the time they reached their destination.

"Good people, though you might be 'ard-pressed to believe it, this child is naught but a pint-sized thief and liar. For 'er benefit, and the benefit of the people of London who would suffer by 'er 'ands if she were allowed to continue 'er ways, she 'as been ordered by the family what cares for 'er to be locked in the stocks for the next two days. Do with 'er as ye will," called the sheriff as he roughly threw Abbie onto a bench and clapped closed the stocks around her ankles and wrists, pinioning her in place.

Two days doesn't sound like a great deal of time, perhaps. If one were told they were going to die in two days, it would certainly seem like far too short a time to accomplish much of anything. Abbie, on the other hand, spent two days in perfect hell and had no concept of the possibility of life happening after those days.

The "good people" as the sheriff had called them took a few hours before they began to come around. It began with a couple carrot pairings that someone tossed at her almost gently. With time, though, the pace picked up considerably as the populace seemed to treat her more and more as a rubbish dump. After a while, Abbie didn't bother to even react to the garbage that was thrown at her: apple cores, rotting vegetables, even the filth that the horses left in the streets were tossed at her in turn as though it were the most pleasant game in the world.

Somewhere about mid-day, the rain began. At first, Abbie was actually grateful for this as it washed away some of the grime and allowed her to swallow a few mouthfuls of water, but as the rain continued for hours she was soaked to the skin. The only good thing about it was the weather kept most of the citizenry indoors so the hail of refuse became less frequent.

As the sun began to set, the rain finally stopped, but the air was horribly chill, and Abbie began to shiver in her wet things. More than once she called out for help to passersby, but they either ignored her or laughed. By the time total darkness had swept over the city, Abbie, who was not known for being cowardly, had begun to shake yet more violently and not just with the cold. Every footfall sounded to her like the approach of a maddened murderer, and each small sound was magnified so greatly in her ears that it seemed like a cannon blast. The moonlight made shadows fall strangely around the square, and anyone who passed seemed strangely spectral and otherworldly.

Not long after a clock had tolled three far off in the muffled distance, Abbie had the prickling sensation that she was being watched closely from across the open space. Her eyes fought to make out a form in the blackness, but she saw nothing. Then, briefly, for a single instant, she thought she saw two pairs of golden eyes glimmering out at her from the dark, eyes unlike anything she had ever seen, either human or animal. She was about to scream when they simply winked out of existence. Terrified, the child fainted, slumping forward onto her outstretched arms.

When the cold dawn broke the next morning, Abbie was awakened by a splash of cold water over her face. The sheriff had returned with a bucket of water, and her offered her two dippers of it before he left. The shivers that had begun the night before had not stopped, and Abbie dimly recognized that she was now ill. A fever was making her brow damp with sweat, and as the sun rose in a completely cloudless sky, the heat became oppressive. Still sitting in the midst of the squalor of the day before, Abbie soon found that the rats were so drawn to the smell that they paid no heed to her completely ineffectual attempts to scare them away. By noon, the stink from the piles around her and from herself was horrible, and the heat reflecting from the stone cobbles made the air waver in an unreal way before her eyes. More abuse and garbage were thrown at her throughout the day, and her back, arms, and legs ached horribly.

By the time night came round once more, she would almost have been happy if there had been another rainstorm. She was parched, and sleep would not come. Her mind moved in the strange fog of fever, and she thought about her home.

It was about midnight when she had run out of all the possible things she would like to do to Lord and Lady Worthshire and their lovely daughter Millicent if she had the chance and the strength. Fury had formed a hard knot in her chest, and it was almost succeeding in keeping her sane. She was going to see the dawn, she was going to be free, because someday she was going to pay them back with interest-not just the noble Worthshires but the whole of London.

A few hours before dawn, she drifted to a fretful sleep, plagued by dreams of the golden-eyed beings she had thought she'd seen the night before. "Nay," said one of them in her dream, "I'll not eat something so covered in dirt as that! Come, let's find better quarry." Abbie shifted uncomfortably again and found that the sunrise was beginning to come at last. The sheriff arrived with his dippers of water again, but he did not set her free. Her ladyship had said two full days, and it was not until mid-morning when he released her from the stocks.

"I do 'ope as ye 'ave learned from this," he declared in ringing tones for the benefit of everyone around, "that this and worse will befall all who steal and lie. Yer lucky, brat, for if ye were grown, for this selfsame crime ye'd have been whipped bloody and like as not 'ad yer nose slit or ears cut off into the bargain. Go you 'ome to your lady and beg 'er forgiveness upon ye, and perhaps she shall be kind to ye, though yer befouled soul warrants it not."

"If my soul be foul and hers fair, then may I have no soul at all," she thought angrily.

The sheriff needed to carry her home since her legs were so painful she couldn't walk. Lady Alice did not bother to see her when she arrived, and the child was placed back on her pallet in the kitchen without ceremony. Nellie took one look at her and laughed loudly, saying that just this once she would let her shirk her duties but she must be up all the earlier the next day.

In the dead of that night, when Abbie's limbs had once more grown nearly sensible again, she crept brokenly from her bed. Moving with complete silence, she ignored the sleeping cook and bundled together in a napkin two leftover loaves of bread, a half dozen leeks, and a few apples. She carefully moved aside a loose brick beside the fire and took out a few coins that she had found on the street and kept there secretly. She cast a wary eye at the silver drawer and took five spoons from it, hiding them in her apron. Before leaving the kitchen, she looked back at Nellie, who lay sprawled on her more comfortable cot in the center of the room. With a triumphant grin, she tied the laces of the cook's shoes together and bolted out the door and into the night, intent upon never setting foot in the house of Lord and Lady Worthshire again.

Abbie left behind her the trials and cruelties of the only home she could ever remember, but her life was to be far from easy. Over the next weeks, though no real search was ever mounted for her, a different pursuer hounded her: sickness. Weakened by her punishment and unable to find enough food of shelter, she quickly caught measles. It was through sheer determination and luck that she was able to withstand and recover from the disease, but, as it so often did in those days, it left her sterile. However, this condition was to prove most useful in the years ahead.


	3. Abelard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abbie has fled from the Worthshires, but how does she manage to stay alive on the streets of London?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this is one of the more disturbing things I have written. By the end of this chapter, Abelard is 16, which is currently age of consent in the UK, so nothing actually underage occurs in that context, but that actually depends on where the reader lives. Also, there are consent issues.

1600: London

For several years, Abbie made her living as a pickpocket and petty thief in London, evading capture by the law and beatings from more established criminals through a remarkably quick wit. She slowly grew to have a reputation for being as hard to catch as a July snowflake. She never grew tall, though in that age few people did, and if a situation became too dangerous for her she simply drifted away in the crowds of the London slums.

But this arrangement wasn't to last forever. While a street child might possibly eek out an existence as a minor nuisance for a while, at long last there were only two places he or she could end up. One was in a pauper's grave at the local churchyard, without a stone since no one ever bothered to learn the names of the orphaned dead. Death for the young was a common outcome. If any one of a thousand diseases in the filthy city didn't catch hold of a homeless child, then the freezing cold in winter or hunger that was never truly assuaged would do the job. When nature didn't visit a quick end on those of Abbie's ilk, a violent death usually lurked around the corner. Drunken knifings, senseless beatings, and the so-called administrators of justice claimed a high tide of victims, as did the strange unknown that dwelled in the shadows and fed upon those no one would miss.

Abbie, however, simply refused to die. After she survived the measles, no other serious disease seemed willing to touch her. She'd lived long enough among plague and pox that if she was going to have them, she would have, and she didn't. For such a small child, she had an extraordinary constitution. When the gales of winter came, in spite of her thin clothes and often bare feet, she stubbornly wouldn't freeze. If at night she had to break into a house and sit by the embers until dawn like an unmoving shadow, departing in haste at the first sign of the inhabitants' rising, she did. During the days, she would find some shelter in the cathedrals or taverns, doing her best to look as though she had some business in the place for as long as she could before moving on to her next stopping point, never loitering so long as to draw attention to herself.

As for violence, she'd seen and been the victim of her fill, but she had learned quickly which places to avoid for fear of the worst cut throats or the law, and her appearance was meant to make her blend in, making her a much less obvious mark. Abbie had the gift of being one of those who drew no trouble on herself because she drew no attention. However, much of that hinged on something she was beginning to have trouble hiding.

It was actually the measles that had first done it just after she left the Worthshires. Within days, her fever had been so high that she had slipped into unconsciousness. An old couple had happened upon her form in an alleyway, and, since she still had the appearance of a servant, albeit not a particularly well cared for one, they took her home with them and nursed her in hopes of a reward. Both had already had measles and had no fears of getting it again, so there was little to lose and possibly much to gain. While it was actually a wonder that their ignorant brand of care, which including bleedings with dirty knives and homemade concoctions with ingredients that could have made most well people ill, Abbie slowly came out of her delirium.

The girl had awoken from her fever to find herself in a strange bed, and the hushed voices in the corner were discussing greedily how much gold they might get in exchange for healing her and returning the errant servant to her household. Out of the frying pan, into the fire, Abbie thought in irritation. She had sense enough not to move, and when the elderly couple went to sleep, intent upon asking the sheriff the next morning whether any wealthy family had reported a runaway scullery maid, she crept silently from her bed. She noticed two things immediately. The first, which hit her forcefully quite literally as she and the floor collided, was that she was still extremely weak. Thankfully, the two adults, who were perhaps half-deaf with age, slept on in the next room. The second, which was revealed when she grabbed her head from the sudden dizziness of the fall, was that her hair had been cut off short due to the fever.

It was then that her eyes fell on a stack of clothes sitting in a mending basket near the fire. Lying on the top were a threadbare shirt and pair of pants that must have belonged to the old man, and an idea hit her as quick as lightning. In a flash, her old frock and apron were off and burned in the fireplace, and she dressed quickly in the man's clothing. She ran unsteadily out the door, going as fast as her unhappy legs would carry her, until she was far from the "charitable" couple.

Pausing to rest, she saw a horse trough outside a nearby inn, its surface illumined by a lantern hanging over the door. She peered carefully at her dim reflection, and her fevered gaze was returned by that of a young boy-a pale, rather small and skinny boy, but definitely a boy, she thought.

For almost six years she had kept up the charade very well, dressing in stolen boys' clothes and going by the name Abelard, which she had heard a storyteller mention in a tale at one of the Worthshires' feasts. She found the inside joke most amusing. Her disguise saved her from a multitude of scrapes, keeping her from the countless dangers that tended to kill off or maim a girl on the streets, and she had no fears of rape. Her days and nights were spent with as much safety as any street waif could have.

However, six years had changed her from a gangly, frail, shapeless child into a young woman, and what was worse, she didn't seem to be destined for homeliness. Strips of cloth were becoming of little avail for tying in her figure, and she had to concentrate very hard to keep her voice, which was taking an alarmingly sultry turn of late, from sounding too feminine. Her time was nearly up.

It was mid-September when it happened. Abbie was sitting at the Three Oxen tavern, a mug of ale bought with ill-gotten money in front of her, when she had the prickling sensation that she was being watched. In short order, the owner, a squat man with a face like an angry mule's, wove in and out of the patrons towards her.

"Man over there wants to talk with ye, Abelard," he said with a nod towards a figure half-hidden in shadows.

Abbie weighed the possibilities carefully. Strangers were always risky propositions. On one hand, he could be offering her a job, looking for a hired hand to help with a bit of theft. It wouldn't be the first time she'd been offered such an opportunity, and the pickings had been terribly slim of late. Her next meal was completely in doubt. On the other hand, this could be some sort of trick. Still, it was a public eating house. If trouble was likely, she could easily raise an alarm, and the poker next to the fire would be a handy weapon should her trusty knife strapped in her boot fail to get her out of things.

Cautiously, she made her way to the man, taking the seat opposite him.

"What've ye to say to me? I've not got the whole night to be wasting," she said in a voice that she hoped was convincingly low enough.

The man, a rather oily-looking specimen with a grizzled beard and black hair that was starting to show gray, unexpectedly grinned and slapped his thigh as he laughed heartily. "Aye! It's so! I don't see how I was blinded to it afore this."

Abbie blinked in alarm and drew back instinctively.

"Nay, don't rear back like a frighted horse... a mare, as the case may be," he said in a voice that didn't carry to the other tables.

"I've no idea what you mean by that," she started hoarsely, but he silenced her with a look.

"No lies, Abelard, if that's the name ye choose. I do believe yer mother must have give ye a most different appellation, but that's neither here nor there," he said smoothly but with a hint of warning, and her heart nearly stopped with the fear that her secret was known at last. "Ye know who I be?"

"Nay, I know you not."

"Most call me Martin," he said in an unconcerned voice. "I've had the greater part of my dealings a bit farther south than here, but I'm still well known in London."

Abbie gave him a hard look. "Known for what?"

"Running Cupid's less pure affairs, as we call it to them what call on us," he said without a show of embarrassment. "I be the proprietor of one of the finest leaping houses on the Thames. Ye know what a leaping house is, Abelard?"

"I'm not so much a fool as that," she said in annoyance, "and if this conversation is taking the turn I see that it is, I've no use for ye," she added as she got to her feet before a hand tightly gripping her arm forestalled her.

"Stay a bit. Let me lie before ye my thoughts, and then shall ye make up yer mind, Abelard," he said firmly as he directed her back into the chair, "that is, unless ye wish me to rip that jerkin off ye before this whole assembly and give them an eyeful of most unmanly flesh as they'll not likely forget again."

She wasn't frightened; she was too furious for that.

"Come now. This is no way to behave. Listen to what I say, for I believe ye'll see the truth of the matter as I set it forth. I'm not over fond of lies, though useful they can be."

She glared at him across the table, willing his head to spontaneously catch fire.

"Ye're quite right. I'm offering to ye a place in my business, provided you clean up somewhat. My girls have naught to fear of hunger or cold, and I treat them right well," he paused a moment, "for whores. We'll not play with words, for that is what they be. T'is indeed what I'm suggesting for ye, Abelard. But the ladies what work for me, they're clothed well and sleep safe. Can ye say that for yerself?"

"Aye," she spat. "I do well enough on my own."

"Mayhaps so," he agreed, "for now. But what in a year's time? Two? What will become of ye then, eh? I've seen through ye. Twill not be long before others notice as well, and do more than notice once they pierce through yer most transparent disguise. Ye know I speak plainly. Think on it. Ye haven't to decide now. If ye choose well, ye'll see me in Crescent Street under the sign of the blindfolded Cupid."

He rose from the table, putting down a few coins.

"Yer ale is paid for with my gold. Health to ye," he said as he gave a stilted mock-bow then left her sitting by the fire with a sinking heart.

This was, of course, the second option open to children of the streets. Boys could escape that fate through a trade or by becoming one of the long-term thieves or worse. But for girls, either death or prostitution would end their days. There were no other roads to travel, and she had realized this long ago.

Two months passed, and in that time she had stolen only enough for a handful of decent meals. Her stomach complained loudly throughout the nights, and the hunger pains were worse than any she had felt before. Winter was coming on, and her boots were growing thin at the sole. When December came, she'd be barefoot once more. It wasn't as easy for her to find her way into a warm kitchen anymore, and she had more than one very close scrape with being caught. Still, none of this was enough to make her run to Crescent Street. But there was something that was.

It was mid-afternoon on a chill day in late November when she was striding down the street, her path preparing to take her past two tinkers' carts. The men were fat and goitered about the face, their eyes reddened even at this time of the day with drink. Normally, she would have taken another route upon seeing men who gave her such violent shivers down the spine, but the only other road that could take her to her destination was infested with the law this day. She had no other choice.

"Hey, there, Jakes," said one of the tinkers as he saw her approaching. "That one there. There's somewhat strange in him. What make you of him?"

Jakes leaned against his motley collection of pots and pans and stared a good long while at her nearing form, but eventually smiled in an altogether unwholesome way back at his fellow tinker. "George, I'd bet my last teeth that's no boy. If the jaunt in the hips would not convince ye, then those merry bobblings a bit closer to the sun would. He's a she is what she is."

Jakes laughed, a sound rather like an animal's snarl. "Aye, I agree with ye. I see it now. However, might it not be worth our while to satisfy curiosity, check to see if we be right or no, eh friend?"

It was just then that Abbie was level with the carts. She was employing her oldest trick, pretending she didn't exist and was of no consequence. This time, though, it was a grave mistake. Her downcast eyes left her vulnerable, or else she would have noticed the hand that was poised to grab her before it could strike, but she didn't.

In a flash, she found herself grasped around the waist by the nearest man, held tightly against his filthy waistcoat by his much stronger arms, her own hands pinned behind her back in the act of reaching for her concealed knife.

"Let go of me!" she called roughly, but surprise had betrayed her by making the timber of her voice entirely too womanish for comfort.

"Aye, we will, young missy," said George in a prurient tone. "In good time. We're just after knowing if our eyes deceive us or not."

It was "missy" that terrified her into a stupor. They knew. In spite of the clothes and the bindings, they knew. The charade was over. For a long moment, she felt as though she were outside herself, watching the faces of the men who were leering at her, knowing that this was how it would always be.

It was Jakes's hand clumsily pawing at the topmost lacings of her tattered jerkin that brought her back to herself. She hadn't survived alone on the streets for six years on pure luck. With her blood boiling in fury, she brought her knee up solidly, connecting hard with the vitals of her would-be attacker. As Jakes doubled over in pain, George's mouth went slack in shock, and he absent-mindedly loosened his grip on her arms. She lifted her foot and slammed it down on George's left boot, causing a spasm of pain to shoot up his leg and crumpling him to the ground, leaving her quite free.

With one fast kick to the face of Jakes, who was beginning to recover himself, she ran down the street for all she was worth, leaving the two tinkers behind her in the grime of the gutters along with any sense of safety she possessed.

For a miserable night and a day, she wandered the city, remaining in the shadows, her brow knitted in consternation. Everything had gone topsy-turvy. While the tinkers might keep their mouths shut to spare themselves the embarrassment of publicly admitting they'd had their backsides kicked by a lone woman, it wouldn't be long before there were others. A girl with no family or friends to go to for aid had few choices. She had tried to appeal to the charity of the churches, the kindness of the people, the conscience of the law, but what help was given was small, and that was given with a great show of reluctance.

That night, she found herself outside the doors of a building in Crescent Street that bore a painted Cupid in a blindfold above the door. For a moment, she thought whether she would rather take her place among the beggars on the Thames and die with them in the winter, but then she decided against it, at least for now. Death was always available.

She put out a hand that shook in spite of herself and knocked on the door with a sound that was surprisingly loud in the nearly vacant street. It was Sunday, the one day of the week when this part of the city wasn't full to bursting with people either offering or buying forbidden pleasures, and she was silently grateful for the coincidence of arriving today.

After a short wait, the door opened. A woman stood behind it, older than Abbie, short and rather plump.

"We're not open for business upon this day, young sir," she said, revealing a missing tooth in her upper mouth. Her voice was roughened by drink in the same way that Abbie had heard many times in the taverns she frequented. "Get ye gone. Ye may return tomorrow, if ye have the money for what's within."

"Nay," Abbie replied. "I'm not... there's... I'm here to see Martin." Her voice was tense, and her face strained with embarrassment. "My name is Abelard."

The woman looked at her appraisingly for a while, and then held the door open a bit wider.

"Get ye inside, then, and blame me not if he tans the hide off ye for being an arrogant pup," she said, none too sure if this thin fellow really had business with the master of the house or not.

Abbie paused for a moment as the woman turned her back and went off down the hall. She was more aware of the feel of the cold stone of the doorstep under her worn soles, and the wind cut through her thin clothes sharply. She knew this was the moment when an absolute decision must be made. If she passed into this door, she would become another one of the prostitutes held inside those walls. If she remained outside, her life would be measured, most likely in weeks. One last time she wracked her brains, trying to see another solution, but there was none.

She took a deep shuddering breath, looked at the stars overhead as though she expected this to be the last time she would see them, then followed the woman inside.

Martin was sitting in a small room off the main hallway, counting over the proceeds of the week. A small sack of gold lay upon the table, and he was entering the amount in a ledger book that stood upon a wooden stand.

"An Abelard to see ye, Martin," the woman said. "He would speak with ye."

Martin's eyes immediately left off the book and went up to the small figure in the doorway.

"Aye. I knew as you would be coming here one day. They found ye out at last, and ye've come to me as I suggested should be done?"

She nodded, doing her level best to keep her chin from shaking and making her eyes meet his. "Aye."

He made a sound halfway between a grunt and laugh, then turned to the other woman, saying "Moll, what say you to young Abelard here joining up with the rest of the girls?"

Moll blinked at this. "We've never done fellows in the crew before."

"T'is not a fellow, are ye, Abelard?"

"No, sir," she replied slowly.

Moll tutted loudly. "Had me fooled. What shall be done with the likes of her, if that's what she is?"

Martin seemed to ruminate on this a bit before coming to a decision. "Hast e'er had a bath?"

"Aye," she said uncertainly. "Nigh eight years hence. I'd fallen in the pig sty and reeked most sourly."

"Well, ye'll be having one again this night. Moll, send Jane to the pump and set much hot water on the kitchen fire. The two of ye are to scrub our Mistress Abelard here til the color of her skin is seen."

"Aye, Martin," she replied with a grunt, none too pleased at the work this would entail, and herded the person in question into the kitchen.

Abbie was rather flustered and unsure of herself, unsure of the prospect of bathing, and most unsure that Moll wasn't planning to drown her in the water when it would arrive. At length, Jane, who turned out to be just a few years older than Abbie, had a fairly pretty face, and wore a dress of oddly-shaded scarlet cotton, brought in bucket after bucket of water from the pump, splashing half of it into a large cauldron that hung over the fireplace and the other half into a wide tub that stood before it. It wasn't long before a thin steam was rising off the surface of the heated water, and Jane and Moll together poured it into the tub.

"There," said Jane, testing it with her elbow. "Tis not so hot as to burn, nor yet so cold as to chill."

Abbie glanced around the room nervously, not quite certain what was expected of her.

"Your clothes, you goose-egg! Off with them!" cried Moll in annoyance.

Abbie gave a single, hard nod, then quickly began unlacing her jerkin. It didn't take her long to undress, and in short order her clothes lay on the kitchen floor. Both Moll and Jane exchanged surprised looks.

"Well, ye be a female, and no doubt of it at all," Moll said in a slightly impressed tone. "T'is a wonder how ye managed to hide that amount of flesh."

Jane tilted her head, gazing at Abbie in the same way some of the old women in the marketplace looked at vegetables to decide which to buy. "Ye're a mite thin, though. Get you in the tub, then."

It turned out Jane needed to go out for yet more water as what she'd brought rapidly turned black with the industrious application of washcloths and soap. In fact, the bathwater was dumped and replaced no fewer than three times in the next hour and a half. At the end of that time, a remarkable transformation had occurred.

When Abbie stepped from the bathwater, she was cleaner than she'd ever been in her life. Her skin was revealed to be a creamy white and remarkably soft given the life she'd led, glowing in a surprisingly ethereal way beneath the candlelight. Her hair turned out to be a warm, sunlight-colored blonde, which had surprised all three of them. It curled slightly above her shoulders from the damp, showing the promised of waving into a charmingly tousled cap of tresses. Granted, it was much shorter than fashion warranted, but what it lacked in quantity was more than made up for in quality, and time would supply the lack.

"Crikey," said a male voice from the doorway, and Abbie quickly ducked behind the tub, the others laughing at her show of modesty. "T'is a most marvelous change. I should as well be gazing on Venus rising from her bath."

He walked the length of the room to her, grabbing her arm and hoisting her to her feet. She shook slightly in humiliation as he walked a wide circle around her, taking the view of her from all sides.

"Never seen the like, and that says much. Lie not to me, as I told you before, for I'll know. Are ye a maid?"

She bit her lip slightly before finding her tongue. "Aye. I'm untouched."

"T'is well. Ye'll fetch a most handsome price from the man to first have ye. Well, girls, fix her up with a dress for the night and burn those foul clothes of hers. On the morrow, we shall decide how to best display her charms to advantage in raiment. Abelard... bah, that name pleases not. What is the name ye were given at birth?"

"My full name is Abigail, though I was called Abbie," she answered as levelly as she could considering she was standing naked in front of three other people, one male.

Martin shook his head in disgust. "Nay. Sounds like some prunish old harridan. Ye're a rare beauty, and ye'll need a name what gives that air to ye. Something rich and elegant. Something that'll make them want to buy. Something..."

He slapped his hands together loudly in a sudden burst of thought, making all the other occupants of the room jump.

"T'is simple. I'll call ye as I first though of when I saw ye without grime. Yer name shall be Venus. Moll, see to it that tomorrow ye go to market and buy several yards of white cloth and make a dress out of it like unto those seen in pictures of the old Romans. We've a goddess amongst us!" He sauntered over to Abbie, his eyes moving over her nude form as he did so, and he put one hand out to touch her cheek. "Ye belong to me, now, girl. I am yer master. Behave well and ye've naught to fear."

His hand drifted down her throat and came to rest possessively on her collarbone, a thing Abbie was none too fond of. She might have sold herself, but she didn't have to like the greasy haired, rather smelly man before her, she told herself.

"I shall look forward to taking ye to my own bed once yer sold and broken. Ye'll bring a pretty penny from yer first night's work, but I'm near tempted to forego it this night for my own pleasure. Fare you well til the morrow," he said in her ear, then roughly kissed her lips, pushing his tongue forcefully into her mouth as he did so. He then abruptly left the room for his own apartments.

She shuddered in disgust but controlled the bile rising in her throat until she had put a nightdress over her head and been shown to her own bed. It wasn't until the door closed behind her with a loud click and she was quite alone that Venus vomited forcefully into her chamber pot, her body wracked with silent sobs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.N.: In Medieval France, Peter Abelard was the lover of Heloise. Her uncle found out about the two of them and had Abelard castrated.


	4. Venus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abelard has become Venus, and she must deal with the consequences of her choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet again, this is extremely dark and twisted, but for Darla to turn out as she did, it would only make sense this is how things went, so far as I can see.

1601: London, England

The next day dawned clear, though still very cold, as late November is wont to do. It was Jane who awoke her, opening the door with a loud thump that caused it to hit the wall.

"Get ye up. We've much to do afore the day is through," she called to her. "Moll hast made her way hence to the market nigh on an hour ago. She shalt be back by mid-morning. Dost wish to break yer fast?"

"Aye," Venus croaked wearily. She hadn't thought of food at all last night, but the dawn had brought back her ravenous appetite.

"Good. Martin says we are to fatten ye up somewhat. Ye'll find a loaf and a jug of milk sitting on the kitchen table. Wear yer nightdress for now, as ye have no other raiment yet," Jane said as she opened the shutters. In the bright daylight, the pockmarks that studded her face and had been hidden in the dim light the night before were thrown into startling relief. However, since well over half the people of the day had precisely the same deformity, Venus didn't have any cause to stare at her. Instead, it was the window that drew her attention.

With a small show of curiosity, Venus looked towards it, wondering if she would be able to see the street below. The leaping house's interior was like a maze, and she had no idea which way she was facing. When Jane backed away from the window, though, Venus could see nothing except for the old, weather-beaten wall of the neighboring tavern not even an arm's length away. There must have been barely enough room to open the shutters in the narrow space between the two buildings.

Venus made her way blearily downstairs and into the kitchen. She met no one else on her way, though she heard a few scrabbling sounds behind various doors. By the time she arrived in the kitchen the bread had mostly cooled, but the simple food tasted so good to her that she nearly wept, and the milk was heavenly.

She had the opportunity to look about the room better by daylight. The bathtub of the night before was still propped against the wall, the copper sides gleaming dully from the hearth fire. Smooth, gray stones lined the floor, and a good-sized oven was put into the brick fireplace. The room wasn't overly neat, but it was far less slop-filled then most of the kitchens she'd seen. This much, at least, boded well.

She had just drained the last of the milk when a pair of women entered the room: Jane and a woman she'd never seen before who regarded her with curiosity.

"Ye must be the new one as Martin's took on," said the stranger, a brunette who would have been pretty if it weren't for her sour expression. She looked a handful of years older than Venus.

"Aye, that's me," said Venus, rather suspiciously. "I'm... he's called me Venus. And who might you be?"

The other girl looked at her with a sniff, then answered. "I'm Dinah. Martin hath sent Jane and me to try to make ye into a girl."

Venus's hackles raised slightly, but she wasn't in a position to say much against them. It was far too soon to be burning bridges.

"Come now," said Jane with a friendlier smile. "I've brought a dress for ye, along with the underpinnings. Hast been corseted before?"

"Nay," said Venus dubiously. "I've not worn women's clothes these six years til last night."

Dinah rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Martin's a fool and no mistake."

"Shh, Di. Twill not do to have ye speaking so about him whilst he's within range. Ye know this," Jane said in nervous whisper. "Come, Venus, if that's what he calls ye now. Off with yer nightdress and into these."

The long drawers that fell loosely to just below her knees weren't uncomfortable. In fact, they reminded her of her old leggings that were currently smoldering in the hearth ashes. But the corset was something else entirely.

"Zounds!" she yelled, gripping her sides as the other two women each pulled on a set of laces. As they continued to tug, she saw her waist, what little there was of it, change shape before her eyes until her lungs seemed fit to burst. A torrent of most unladylike curses flooded out of her mouth, but they paid no heed. "Do ye mean to murder me?"

"Doth feel that way at first," Jane assured her, "but ye grow accustomed to it right quick. Mostly."

"The only way I could grow accustomed to the feel of this is if I had no need to draw breath!" Venus half yelled. It would have been full-throated hollering but she had no air for it. "Need it be so tight?"

"Aye," Dinah said. "Ye will not be needing overmuch more, though, for yer a skinny little thing. Too much lacing and ye'd be naught but backbone. Still, it helps to curve ye above and below a mite."

Venus took several shallow breaths, trying to catch her air and feeling like her stomach was in a vice. The bread and milk she'd gulped down so happily a few minutes ago were starting to feel like a horrible mistake as they began making war against the strange garment.

Next came a bum roll, a padded circle that tied below her waist and formed a base for the petticoats that were to be put atop it. It felt odd, and she could see for herself the effect it had: the tiny waist looked even smaller than it was compared to the sudden billow of the roll directly below it. This was quickly followed by two petticoats. They were yards and yards of off-white, cheap stuff, not highly important as far as looks went by themselves, but absolutely necessary for forming the desired silhouette. By the time they were finished with this, she could no longer see her legs, and her hips seemed to jut out at an absolutely impossible angle. Venus couldn't help thinking that if this was what men found attractive, they were fools, for women's bodies looked nothing at all like this.

Finally, a simple gown of deep blue wool was put on top of everything else. Its neckline was square and unadorned, and the buttons and lacings that held the dress together required all three sets of hands to close them. It was only second-hand and threadbare in places, and it was quite plain, but Venus managed to somehow look awkwardly charming in it. A pair of uncomplicated black slippers was put on her feet. They were slightly worn, but they were still the finest shoes she had ever owned. Venus got unsteadily to her feet, trying to balance herself on the two low heels, and nearly wound up back on the stool.

"It feels like these clothes weigh a hundred stone!" she said angrily. "How dost ye expect me to move in the likes of this?"

"Slowly," Dinah replied with a satisfied smile. "Quite slowly."

It was not, however, all that difficult for her to acclimate to her new dress. From being a pickpocket and thief in general for so long, Venus had become surprisingly graceful and light on her feet. Her long held habit of walking without a sound translated beautifully to her new apparel, making it seem as though she were gliding over the floor. The corset forced her into extremely good posture, and though she was still rather short, she made the most of what height was given to her. Still, her movements were remarkably hampered. She could no more run in this outfit than she could fly, and she could tell that standing for any length of time would prove extremely uncomfortable.

As a final touch, Jane pulled out a small wooden box and opened its hinged lid, rummaging about in its contents and pulling out various vials.

"This is the sweet coffer used by all of us," she explained as she continued to dig through the box. "Ye must learn to paint yerself, but ye must learn the way of it first."

In short order, a paste of sage was dotted across Venus's teeth to make them whiter, geranium leaves were applied to her cheeks to redden them, and a strange concoction that stung was daubed on her nose, forehead and chin to improve her complexion. Thankfully, unlike many other women of the time, powdered lead to whiten the face did not find its way into the girls' possession, unknowingly sparing them its caustic habit of engraving the faces it touched with deep pitting over time.

Venus knew, even with the lack of a mirror, that her appearance was quite good from the reactions of the other two. Jane looked pleased while Dinah had a cold look that told Venus the other woman was trying to calculate which of them was the prettier.

"Well, I've done with ye," Dinah declared. "Ye still have much to learn, but that's no concern of the likes of me. Moll will teach ye."

"Ye look comely, Venus," Jane said in a truthful tone, but there seemed a little sadness in her voice. "Ye'll find, though, that is not always what one would wish for in this place."

"Get ye gone hence, baggages," shouted Moll as she suddenly strode into the kitchen. "The new one and me needs must have conversation. Go and put a clean blanket of rushes down in the main chamber for tonight's customers."

"Aye, Moll," the two said together, and they disappeared through the doorway, leaving the newest alone with the oldest.

"Well, ye look like a female now and no mistake," Moll said approvingly. "Hast eaten?"

"Aye," she said uncomfortably. She'd spent the greater part of her life trying not to draw attention to herself, both on the streets and at the Worthshires', and to be studied so closely by so many people in a day was disconcerting.

"Tis time for me to explain a thing or two to ye," Moll said as she plopped herself down at the table.

The next hour was spent in a highly unpleasant description of what exactly Venus had gotten herself into. She learned the rules quickly. If a buyer could pay, Martin allowed no girl to turn him down. Is she became pregnant, she was to be turned out of doors as soon as anyone knew, and she was not welcome to return until the child was gone, one way or another. It turned out that the dress she was wearing had recently belonged to another prostitute who had gotten herself in just that fix about a month ago. There were a few precautions in place; Martin didn't let anyone in who looked like he might have plague or any other fatal illness, and if a customer seriously injured one of the girls, he wasn't welcome again. Venus didn't exactly feel overcome with gratitude as those safeguards seemed to be just as beneficial to Martin, one by protecting himself from disease and the other by ensuring his prostitutes were able to work. Venus was to have the week of her "uncleanness," as Moll put it, away from the buyers, and that time was to be spent earning her keep by doing the housework. The leaping house was, of course, not open for business on Sundays.

"Twill be most important for ye to remember that tis not a profession that is legal," Moll said threateningly. "Granted, the officers of the law come hither as oft as any others, but when the moral winds are blowing too strong and the people demand it, places like this can be smote down right quick. If any who isn't buyin' asks what ye do, tell him that the ladies here doth make lace and do embroidery work."

Venus stared at the woman as though she'd lost her mind. No one would believe a tale like that! She barely knew which end of a needle was sharp.

"I know, tis an unlikely story, but ye'll not tell 'em the truth, after all," Moll answered her look. "Sometimes, they'll let ye go if they've got the least excuse. Other times... well, naught to be done about the other times, so least said of 'em, the better."

Venus swallowed hard, knowing that her time in the stocks as a child might well look like a pleasant memory in comparison to what would await her if she were unlucky. Unfortunately, the swallow was a poor choice as the corset restricted her stomach so much that she wound up coughing harshly and bruising her ribs in the process.

"Now, Martin hath taken it into his head to turn ye into an entertainment of sorts," Moll explained bluntly, obviously not thinking much of the idea. "Yer to be presented in the main chamber as a kind of show to whet the appetites of the buyers for the next few weeks. Every Wednesday, he'll give ye a grand introduction, and yer to come forth, keep yer mouth closed fast, and do as yer told. On the eve of the new year, he will auction ye to the highest bidder, and ye'll take whatever man what pays for ye to yer bed, and that'll be that."

Five weeks and a few days remained between now and then, Venus thought. It felt like she'd been handed a death sentence, and she considered for a moment whether it would be better to just leave this place and try her luck on her own. A less realistic person might have walked through the door, but she knew better. There was no hope of a happy ending in her story, regardless of the path she chose. She could either die in the cold this winter, more than likely with the threat of rape always hanging over her head until her death, or she could have a place to eat and sleep, and the privilege of taking her would have a price tag on it, at least. Given the choice, she nodded her surrender to Moll's words and went back upstairs again.

The next two days passed swiftly. Venus quickly became used to the daily routine of the place. The prostitutes were usually relaxed during the day, going about the business of sewing or laundry, cleaning or cooking. There was an odd silence that reigned over them though, as if no one really wanted to talk about anything too deeply. Jane wasn't unpleasant company, although Venus had decided almost at once that Dinah could be run over by a passing carriage without it being a loss, and the feeling proved to be mutual. Shortly before sunset, Venus was sent off to her room by Moll before the evening's events began. Drifting up the staircase were sounds of raucous laughter and loud, drunken singing from the main room, which soon invaded the hallway and eventually landed in the rooms that belonged to the girls. The noises became different then. On the second night, Venus remembered to bring a large quantity of ale into her room.

On Wednesday, though, things changed. Around mid-afternoon, Jane called her into the kitchen once more where a pile of white woolen cloth was lying on the table.

"Ye quite alright, Venus?" Jane asked as she took in the clammy face and hands of the young girl. "Remember, they'll not have ye tonight, after all."

"Aye," Venus said. "But still, tis most... most..."

"Unpleasant," Jane finished for her. "Naught to be done for it, though, for the likes of us. Come now. Out of that and into this, then."

Venus began to take off her dress with the girl's help, still very awkward with the foreign lacing and buttons in odd places.

"Jane," she asked, not quite sure if she should broach the subject, "how didst ye come here?"

Jane blinked in response. No one else had ever asked her this question, not even Martin. Well, if it would get her mind off her nerves, perhaps it was for the best.

"Oh, that would be a rather boring tale, but if ye must know, I was married at fourteen to a man of six and forty in a small town to the east of here. Twas not so bad at first. He was a miller, and though he had an uncommon foul temper, he was away days and often nights as well, usually at a place such as this. When the third summer of our marriage came and we still had no child, though, he was right angry with me. Things became..." she paused for a moment as she helped pass the new dress over Venus's head, "well, twas not good. I still carry some of the markings he made upon me. Ere long I realized he meaned to kill me and marry another if he could not get a child upon me, so I left. London was where I came to, as there was nowhere else. My path ended here. Tis a common enough lot. No whore chooses her career, yet there are plenty of us about."

Venus had barely noticed the strange dress as it was put on her. Moll had seen a few engravings of Roman goddesses, but they'd been rather unspecific. The white wool was definitely much narrower than Venus's blue dress, and she wore no petticoats or corset beneath it at all. It wrapped around her like a shawl over her shoulders, coming to a low, V-shaped neckline, belted with a thin gold cord at her waist, and falling in a loose skirt to her feet, which were left bare. Jane combed her hair outwards so it was quite full around her face, then put a rather gaudy garland of red paper poppies on her head. A stronger application of the geranium leaves on her cheeks than usual brought a bright pink color to her skin, and as a finishing touch, a black beauty patch was placed at the corner or her eye, a symbol of flirtatiousness.

"There ye are, Venus," Jane said as she handed her a mirror. "What say you?"

Venus stared into the small looking glass at the strange woman in front of her. Jane had done her job very well, she thought. With an appraising eye, she decided she looked quite beautiful, though rather common and tacky at the same time, but wasn't sure if she was happy about it.

"Try to eat a bite of something," Jane encouraged her. "At least, for once, ye'll be able to swallow."

Venus looked at the stew simmering in the pot over the fire and shook her head. She might be able to get it down well enough, but there was far too good a chance of it coming straight back up again.

Just then, Martin walked into the room, rubbing his hands together eagerly.

"Ah, well, ye and Moll have done good work here," Martin said as he took in Venus. "She'll give 'em a bite of lust and no mistake. Well, will be no matter. Girl, yer to wait here until Dinah comes for ye. Ye'll stand outside the main chamber until I call, and then shall ye enter, full silent. Stand beside me, and when I'm through, yer to go back to yer room. Aye?"

"As ye say, Martin," she answered, managing to hide the quiver in her.

"Tis well ye are tractable. I'd rather not have to mar ye with beating ye into yer place. Enough. Twill see ye by and by," he said as he walked from the room, dreaming of how much gold she would make him, among other things, Jane following him out.

Venus was left alone in the kitchen, and she might as well still have been wearing a corset because her insides felt entirely squashed and her breath was coming in small gasps. She sat on one of the stools and tried to compose herself, but it felt like the room was closing in on her. The sun set, its orange rays slowly withdrawing from the room, and darkness blanketed the city, making it feel like the fire in the hearth was the last bit of safety left on earth.

"Venus, yer majesty," said Dinah mockingly from the doorway, "yer to come along now."

She got to her feet unsteadily, but she was determined not to let the other woman see the fear in her eyes. She looked at her levelly, then went down the hallway.

"Stop here, where none can see ye, and listen for when Martin calls out for ye," Dinah ordered her none too gently before disappearing back into the room.

Venus would even have been grateful for her rude company rather than being alone, but she had presence of mind to listen carefully through the din of drunken laughter and crude songs. It wasn't long before she heard Martin's voice hushing everyone.

"Friends! I've a great treat for ye all this night! We have now amongst us a most lovely beauty, a very goddess of the Thames. Come now, Venus! Out with ye!"

Taking a deep breath, Venus silently entered into the room, and her eyes quickly found Martin at the opposite side of what seemed like a mob of people. At least eighteen men were crowded into the room, and at her entrance they began to cheer drunkenly. She walked swiftly to Martin and faced them, her eyes on the floor.

"Now, now, none of that. Raise yer head so the gentlemen can see yer pretty blue eyes and yer lovely face, girl, and smile so they might wonder at yer good teeth," Martin said loudly. "Ye see, friends, if ye can believe it, this sweet morsel is untouched, pure as the fresh fallen snow! Not e'en I have taken her as yet."

Venus managed to get her head up, and looked around at what felt like an absolute throng of people. The men were lazing about the room, drinking huge tankards of ale that Martin brought in from the tavern next door. Most of them were working class sorts, mainly in their thirties and forties, none of them particularly clean or well groomed. Jane was sitting on the lap of one man who had his arm thrown around her shoulder, his hand resting blatantly on her bosom. Dinah sat imperiously on a stool next to one of the more well-to-do men, casting him dagger looks as he openly leered at Venus and ignored her.

Several other prostitutes were scattered about the room, most of them having already attracted the attention of one or another of the men, but there was something off about them. There was a false gaiety on their faces that was skin deep. Each had a smile plastered from ear to ear, laughed for little or no cause at whatever her male companion said, and behaved as though there was nowhere else in the world she would rather be. The smiles, however, did not reach their eyes, and it was not their normal tones of voice they used when they teased and flattered the greasy buyers.

She could still hear Martin blathering along, extolling her virtues, or vices as the case might be, to the assembled crowd, when Venus saw a small group of younger men at the very back corner of the room. Three of them looked very at ease, as though they had been here many times before, but the fourth was obviously uncomfortable, almost as uncomfortable as she was. He was perhaps no more than nineteen, dressed simply like all the rest, and had a face that, though not overly handsome, had a kind mouth. When his eyes lifted from his tankard to glance at the girl being offered for sale, their gaze met, and in that instant there was no one else in the room. She felt a burst of unfamiliar feeling, something in the room that wasn't lecherous and filthy and vile. It was strangely comforting but frightening as well, and somehow, she was sure he felt it too. Venus's heart beat faster, and she was suddenly aware of how exposed she felt once more.

"Venus, did ye not hear me?" asked Martin in a tone that suggested she had made a blunder of enormous proportions.

"I... I'm sorry, Martin. I heard ye not," she said softly, terrified that she would get into further trouble for speaking but not knowing what else to do.

"A bit overcome by all the attention, gentlemen! Ye can see I didn't lie when I spoke of her modesty," he said, throwing Venus a private look that she knew meant she had made yet another mistake. "I said that ye were to raise the hem of yer skirts and show the menfolk yer pretty knees, that they might have a glimpse at what paradise will await the fortunate one who shalt win yer company on the eve of the new year."

Venus hesitated a moment, knowing it was considered highly indecent for a woman's legs to be exposed. She'd never in her life seen so much as a bared female ankle on the street, and while a few days ago she'd worn hose and jerkin without shame, that was because no one knew she wasn't a boy. Now it was a very different matter, and somehow the last thing she wanted to do was make the young man in the back look at her that way.

A glance at Martin amended that thought. That was the second from the last thing she wanted to do. The first was to make Martin any angrier. With a trembling hand, she caught up the edge of her skirt and lifted the hem until her bare legs were exposed to the knee. Waves of rowdy cheering and whistles along with a barrage of complimentary though crude remarks flowed from the crowd. She thought she was going to die with shame.

She forced herself to look at the young man again, but found that he didn't have the same expression as the rest. Written on his face was sympathy mixed with a strange look of protectiveness and a hint of, well, awe. It was plain he found her attractive, and that, at least, was something good. She managed a small smile, and Martin grinned approvingly.

"There now, girl, ye mayest go. Now, now, good sirs! No disappointment from ye! I told ye, ye'll see her again when a week has passed," Martin said as he squired her gracelessly to the door. Jane managed to give her an encouraging smile just before she was out of sight.

Martin had given her an earful the next day for not listening to him, but she'd gotten off easy since her debut had gone almost perfectly as he wished. The men had bought quickly afterwards, and there was no doubt in his mind that they would all be back for the next showing of the Venus of the Thames, more than likely with several of their friends. There had been a few, of course, who didn't take one of the girls upstairs, though they'd still paid for their company in the main room. He'd expected as much, especially from the new young one who acted like the girls would break if he so much as breathed on them.

The next week, Venus was robed once again in her pseudo-Roman toga, and the nerves were back in full force, though they were somewhat different. She knew what waited on the other side of the door now, and she could hear the crowd was larger tonight. Still, she wondered if the young man was among them. It wasn't long before Dinah again fetched her from the kitchen and she stood outside the main room, waiting for Martin to call her.

"Gentlemen, I know right well what it is has brought ye tonight. Ye wish to catch a glimpse of our beauty! Behold, the Venus of the Thames!"

She walked into the room to the general uproar once more, and was relieved when she stood next to Martin and was able to see the same young man sitting in the back corner of the room again. He smiled at her warmly, and she returned the smile gratefully. It was like finding a port in a storm.

"Look at this perfection, this veritable queen before ye, friends! Ye've never seen the like of her. Hair of spun gold and eyes like bits of sky, skin like new milk and cheeks as pink as blossoms! Not a pockmark to be seen anywhere upon her. Come now, is she not the very goddess of love herself?"

A full-throated cheer rose from the crowd, which was almost half again as big as last week, and Venus smiled in female satisfaction at being so universally adored, especially since the young man in the corner, though he didn't carry on like the rest, seemed to agree with Martin's description of her charms.

Once more, Martin had her brazenly show her lower legs, and she found it slightly easier this time since she was expecting it, though she still had no taste for it. After the renewed acclaim at the sight of forbidden flesh, she was once more ushered out of the room and into the hall, and she stopped for a moment to catch her breath before going up to her rooms. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a gentle touch on her arm.

"I'm sorry, m'lady," said the young man, who had followed her, unnoticed, into the corridor. "I have no wish to fright thee."

"That's... I'm quite alright, thank thee, kind sir," she said, completely shocked to see him. She cast a quick look around for Martin, and the young man turned too.

"Martin is busy speaking with one of the others. He shalt be a while yet. Thou needst not fear," he said quickly. "I... I don't wish to be overbold."

Venus found herself laughing at this. "I've sold myself as a whore, sir. To be overbold is yer right, as I understand it."

A pained look crossed his face. "I'd not call thee that. I... my name is Geoffrey. Art thou truly called Venus?"

"Now, aye, tis my name," she said. "A silly one, though, that Martin hath gave me. I was once Abigail."

"Abigail," he said, his voice stretching the word. "Thou art lovely, Abigail. I have a question to put to thee, but I..." He paused, obviously gathering his courage. "Wouldst thou permit me to bid for thee on New Year's Eve? If thou sayest nay, I'll not accost thee again."

"I'd rather like that thou shouldst," she said softly, feeling oddly shy. After all, even though she had been a street urchin for years, it was still possible for her, as for any sixteen-year-old girl, to be completely smitten. "Wilt thou come again next week?"

"I'd not miss it for the wide world," he vowed. "I shalt leave thee now."

"Wait," she called as he turned to go. He was beside her again in a moment. "I... I want thee to know... what Martin spoke is truth. I am a maid."

"I'd no doubt of it when I saw thee," said Geoffrey gently. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it clumsily. "Until next week, m'lady."

At last, Venus's life had some hope in it. She would be Geoffrey's, and he would become her lover and take her from the leaping house as his mistress or his wife, of that she had no doubt. Martin was pleased to find her singing cheerily as she swept the stairs that week, though her voice was too low and throaty for his liking. Jane stared at her, but she had found sometimes it was best not to ask questions.

Wednesday came around once again, and this time Venus found herself putting on her costume with a light heart. Geoffrey would be there, and perhaps they might be able to speak again. Nothing else mattered compared to that. When Dinah called her, she smiled smugly at her as she almost eagerly awaited her cue.

Once again Martin had provided a build up to an even larger crowd than the previous week, and when Venus was called to come forth, she stood next to Martin and scanned the crowd quickly, finding Geoffrey in his customary corner. He inclined his head politely to her, and she beamed in return. The customers bellowed their approval of the pretty girl, made even more radiant this time through the happiness that suffused her.

"Have ye ever seen any to compare with this fair maiden? Is she not perfection itself?"

One old man near the middle of the room yelled loudly, "She's a right fine one, save for the locks that barely scrape her shoulder!"

Startled by the sudden insult, Venus looked straight at the man, and realized that Dinah, who was his current companion, was conspiratorially whispering in his ear as the old man's grin widened. There was no doubt who had fed the heckler his lines and that she was intending to make it worth his while that night. Dinah's lips twisted into a subtle sneer as she returned Venus's gaze, and inwardly she vowed that Dinah would be getting a thorough lesson in the street fighting she had learned at some point soon when Martin's back was turned.

Martin, meanwhile, was momentarily flustered while the group murmured as it realized the truth of the statement. Pointing out the one flaw in the girl had made it all the more obvious, and he could practically see his profits starting to fall. He needed to do something quickly before all was lost, and an idea quickly jumped into his head. In order to downplay a bad point, play up a strong one, he reasoned.

"Aye, sir, tis most true," Martin said in agreement. "But look you here. Tis to give ye all a better view of her many charms. Turn around, girl."

Venus obeyed, but was more than a little wary. She'd grown used to the usual order of things, and this was most certainly not on the normal program.

"Gentlemen, if her tresses were any longer ye'd miss the lovely view of this," Martin said as he quickly pulled her belt free, causing the wrapping of her dress to fall open. He swiftly grabbed the back of her dress, pulling it down so her back was bared to the waist for the entire room to see. The effect was exactly as Martin had hoped. They completely forgot about her hair when they saw the perfect expanse of skin before them, and the mob of men was utterly under her power again. They whooped at the sight with abandon.

Venus, on the other hand, was mortified. Hot tears stung her eyes as she stared resolutely at the dirty wall in front of her. They were disgusting, filthy beasts. Finally, she felt Martin tug the back of her dress into place, and she tied the cord at her waist firmly in place so she was covered once more before she turned back to them.

Dinah looked abashed. Her plan had backfired spectacularly, although she took grim satisfaction in the humiliation that was branded on Venus's face.

Without a word, Venus sped through the room and out into the hall, not caring whether Martin had excused her or not. She went up to her room and shook with fury through the entire night, lying awake and plotting all the various different ways she'd like to kill both Dinah and Martin.

Jane knocked on her door about sunrise.

"Come in," Venus answered, and her hoarse voice told the other girl immediately that she hadn't slept at all.

"Are ye alright, Venus?" she asked. "Ye look right haggard."

"I feel right haggard," she replied.

Jane shut the door and sat on the foot of her bed. "Look ye here. I'll speak honest to ye, though mayhaps I should not. Dinah doth hate ye mightily, and the reason is that she was once the favorite of Martin. Now, though, he dotes upon ye. She's fit to burst with jealousy and wants naught but to make ye miserable. She can be dangerous as a viper that one. There was a girl, Belinda, who she didst hate almost as much as ye, and it wasn't long afore that girl found herself handed off to a buyer who didst beat her so grievously her nose was smashed and Martin would have none of Belinda after that. She still worked, but came most cheap, so she had the worst of the lot. Last year she died of fever. What happened last night was but a bite of what she hath in store for ye if ye aren't cautious. Dost understand?"

"Aye," Venus said, taking this in. "Thank ye for the words."

"Ye heard it not from my lips. Come down to eat, then."

The following week was less relaxed than the previous one had been. Venus still carried hope in her heart, but she loathed the possibility Martin might decide on a repeat performance of last week's display. Meanwhile, Martin's coffers were overflowing with gold. Never had the leaping house been so popular. Some of the girls were taking three buyers a night one after the other, and almost all of them were there in hopes of catching a glimpse of Venus. Greedily, he decided more was in order. There were only two weeks before the bidding night, and Martin, unconscionable showman that he was, intended to make the most of them.

When Venus made her entrance that night, she had a moment of panic. Geoffrey wasn't in his usual spot. Her eyes flitted over the group of men, who were packed in so tightly she could barely make her way through them, and finally she saw him standing against a wall at the other side of the room. She took a breath of relief.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, this is a fortunate night that ye have all come hither!" Martin called. He decided against directly noting it was Christmas Eve in case it did anything to increase whatever piety might lurk in the hearts of those present. Normally, the brothel wouldn't even be open tonight, but he couldn't resist the flood of gold pouring in the doors. The women, though, were more than a little furious about having to work.

"A week hence this beauty shall belong to one of ye," he said happily, eyeing Venus proudly. After all, she was his. "And as a token of merriment, I shalt give ye all a present. Undo yer girdle, Venus."

She'd hoped this time he wouldn't insist on it, but she turned to the wall and began undoing the knots in her belt.

"Nay, girl! Face ye this way!"

Her mouth dropped open in shock and her eyes became enormous.

"Do as yer told, girl," he ordered more sternly, though no one but she could hear it over the tumultuous acclaim of the customers. There was a threat hanging in his words, and she couldn't see any way out.

Her fingers numbly worked the knots until they came loose. Biting her lip, she let the top of her dress fall to her waist. Nightmarish didn't begin to describe her feelings. She kept waiting for the floor to open up and swallow her whole, but the damn thing wouldn't do it. At long last, Martin gave her a small nod, and she clutched the dress against her chest and pushed her way back through the room, her anger reaching murderous proportions. She didn't stop running until she was safely in her own room with the door bolted shut.

When the knock came the next morning, she had no desire to speak to Jane. However, the door opened before she uttered a word, and it was Martin, not Jane, who was standing on the other side.

"Think not that ye've been ill-used," he told her plainly. "I saw the look in yer eyes last night, and I think I'd best remind ye that sold yet or no, yer a whore. Ye belong to me, and I can do with ye as I please. If it strikes my fancy to paint ye blue and parade ye through the center of town, I'll do so. Ye've no one to appeal to: not law, not church, not family, not friends. Ye'd best remember that and give me no cause for grief or twill go most badly for ye. I'm telling ye now what I intend so ye can make up yer mind to obey without fault when the time doth come. At yer auction, I've decided yer to be naked entirely. Ye've no choice in the matter. The sooner ye realize this, the better wilt be. I'll not have ye tryin' to buck my will, girl. Yer to be obedient, and if not, ye'll find the strap an able persuader."

Venus clenched her teeth and ground out "I do hate ye, Martin."

"Aye, girl," he said offhandedly. "As do all yer sister whores. I know this. Hate me as much as ye wish, but obey me else ye shant live long."

The door slammed resoundingly as Martin left Venus sitting up in her bed. She was still there when Jane edged into the room almost three hours later, and the other woman was greatly disturbed by what she saw. Venus was staring blankly at the door as though she'd suffered a blow to the head, and she completely ignored Jane's arrival.

"Venus? What is it, girl? What's happened to ye?" she asked with concern. As she received no answer, she slapped her soundly against her face, and the other woman slowly came around as though from a deep sleep.

"He's the devil himself, and I've become his property," she muttered. "Jane, is it common for him to strip us afore selling?"

"What? Nay, tis never done so! He'd not be such a fool as to do that," Jane said.

"He hath told me so himself. And there's," Venus's voice broke a bit, and for the only time she could remember since she'd taken to the streets, tears threatened in her eyes. "There's one who..."

"Who you'd not like to see you displayed as such, aye? There's a Geoffrey what asked about ye these ;last two weeks," Jane said plainly. She didn't approve of such things since they rarely ended well, but on very rare occasions things could possibly change. Perhaps Venus was destined for more than being another of Martin's prostitutes. If so, it would be nice to know at least one of them could escape this life.

"Please, Jane, be there any way around such a thing that ye can conceive?" asked Venus.

Jane looked thoughtful for a moment, then an idea came to her. "Martin is first a man of money. I sometimes think a coin purse doth beat in his breast. He loves gold more than reason allows, and if he can be made to see that this ploy could be against that, then he may well relent. I'll speak to him, Venus."

"And well shall I remember ye for this, Jane," Venus said seriously. "E'en if it fail, that ye didst try is more than aught else hath e'er been done for the likes of me. I'll make it up to ye some day."

"Make no promises ye canst keep," Jane said wearily. "Tis a slender hope at that, and might be best broached later. Rest or get up as ye will, for tis Christmas Day, and there's no work upon this night. Martin's greed may know no bounds, but the law can be most unforgiving this time of year to such as he."

The days passed far too swiftly for her liking, and soon the year was drawing rapidly to a close. The new century would be upon her. At long last, on the afternoon of December 31st, Jane pulled her aside for a moment.

"Tis done. Martin chose me as his companion last night, and afterwards, when he was in a good humor, I did tell him that twas not a good plan to have ye naked. Twould be entirely too much for free, I told him, and that did make his mind go round. He hath changed his mind, and ye art not to be laid bare. Tis a small thing, Venus, and may make no real nevermind, but at least yer saved of this," she said, but there was no smile in her eyes.

"I do thank ye, Jane," Venus said in relief. "Tis no small thing to me."

The day wore on, and as Venus donned her now-familiar costume, it was with great nervousness but a light heart. Geoffrey would buy her tonight, of that she was sure, and she would soon leave behind the leaping house with its groping buyers and dismal future. Jane she would see to, as she'd said. Somehow, the girl would be repaid for her kindness.

It was shortly before midnight when Martin called Venus into the room. A tense hush had fallen upon the crowd. Geoffrey was there once again, his smile reassuring her from a place that was much nearer the front of the room than usual.

"I've no need," sang forth the master of ceremonies, "to tell ye all what a rare dainty is before ye. Ye have eyes. Now, what will ye give me for the chance to be the one to first lay with Venus, the goddess of the Thames?"

Immediately Geoffrey's hand sprang into the air as he shouted "A crown!"

"Aye, a crown, good sir," Martin replied happily, pleased that the bidding had started out so high. Most of the girls went for seven or eight pennies apiece, the price of a day's work, but a crown could take a London laborer two weeks to earn. "Who shall raise the bidding?"

Several faces fell as the reality hit them that they had no chance at Venus if this was where bidding began, but others jumped into the fray.

"I do bid an angel for yon falling angel!" yelled a man seated in the middle of the room and wearing a worn green doublet, naming a coin worth two crowns, nearly a month's wages.

"Tis well, sir, well indeed," Martin called, his voice rising joyfully.

"Three crowns," Geoffrey said quickly, giving Venus a smile that comforted her as the loud booming of the crowds cheered on the bidders.

"Aye, three crowns," Martin said, his eyes starting to bulge with avarice.

"Eighteen shillings!" shouted the man in the green doublet.

"A pound!" Geoffrey shouted back, causing a gasp to be heard through the room.

Nearly two month's wages for a single night with one of Martin's prostitutes was almost unheard of. Only Dinah's debut at one pound and three crowns surpassed it. Martin was practically salivating.

"Indeed, sir, tis a most worthy amount for such a most worthy prize, but good sirs! Gaze upon her, see how perfect she doth seem, and imagine that pleasures that await ye at the top of yon staircase! Wilt not any give more than this?"

"I bid a pound and a two crowns," said the man in green, and his tone suggested that there was very little more than that in his purse.

"Aye, a pound and an angel for our Venus! What say you, good sir?" Martin asked Geoffrey, who was looking more concerned.

"For the girl, I shall give," and he quickly counted coins in his hand, "two pounds, fifteen shillings, eight pennies, and two farthings!"

The crowd took up a deafening roar, and Martin's mouth dropped open in shock. Dinah looked fit to be tied as Venus's price beat her own by far more than three shillings. Jane gave the blonde a smile and sighed softly in relief as she knew full well that there was no man on creation who would pay more than that.

"Good sir, I wager thou hast won her," Martin declared when he had found his tongue again. "Is there any here to prove me wrong?"

"I will pay five pounds in gold," spoke a man who had hitherto remained quiet in the foremost row.

Venus's face turned deathly white as the hallooing threatened to crack the windows. Five pounds! That was more money than most of the men in the room could make in a full year! The bidder was a fat, graying man in his late forties who, now that she looked at him, would have been a perfect mark for her two months ago in her pick pocketing days since as he was better dressed than anyone else in the room. He held the five coins aloft in his hand as proof of his bid, and Martin was able to tell from this close of a range that they were indeed genuine.

"Five pounds. Indeed, five pounds," said Martin thickly, his mouth having gone completely dry. "Five... five pounds. Aye. Wilt thou bet against the man, sir?"

Geoffrey was urgently arguing in low tones with a friend who sat next to him, and Venus felt as though the world were drifting away. She saw Geoffrey clap the other man on the shoulder firmly and saw a smile come to his face as he said, "Aye! Five pounds and sixteen shillings!"

Venus felt the floor under her feet again as she drew a deep breath, and Geoffrey was slapped on the back in congratulations by half a dozen other men, but his victory was short-lived.

"Ten pounds," came the firm answer from the fat, older man.

Venus stared in horror at Geoffrey, and the look that passed between them said everything. There was no more money, and even if he'd been able to gather it, the other man would have merely outbid him again. Geoffrey turned his eyes away and looked fixedly at the floor.

"Then going once, going twice, and, aye, Venus is sold to the man in the front row!" Martin yelled hoarsely, reaching out to collect the coins from the man. Venus heard nothing as the room exploded for a final time into catcalls. "There thou are, good sir. Take her along to her room now, and may thou have good pleasure of her!"

Martin grabbed the girl's hand and placed it roughly into the man's, giving her a firm swat on the backside as the room broke into raunchy laughter while the two exited the room silently.

She had no memory of going down the hallway and to the door of her room. Everything felt unreal. Reality had blown out like the final embers of a dying fire in the grate. It wasn't until the man took the wreath of poppies from her hair and looked her over from the top of her head to her bare feet as though she was a new milk cow he had just bought and was relatively pleased with that she came to herself and knew that this was terribly, sickeningly real.

"Please don't hurt me," she whispered.

With a self-satisfied smile, the man didn't say a word. He pushed open the door, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her into a slobbering kiss, making fast work of her girdle as the door slammed shut behind them.

 

 

Dawn's cold winter light poured across Venus's unmoving form the next day as she lay alone in her bed. The unknown man had departed about an hour before, never addressing a single coherent word to her. She would never see him again.

Pulling herself out of bed took a near superhuman effort. Her body ached horribly; the buyer had taken full advantage of the exorbitant sum he had paid for her. The shutter, which had been left open by chance, flapped weakly against the leaping house's outside wall in the early morning quiet. The clopping of a horse's hooves over the broken cobblestone pavement was the only sound she could hear besides the doleful breeze, weak but knife-sharp with cold, as it whistled around the corner of the building. Nothing but her stirred within or without.

The chill bit into her skin like an animal, and it was only then that she realized she was still naked. She pulled on her blue woolen dress and stirred the ashes that remained in her small grate. She nearly tripped over the remains of her white costume, and she kicked it under the bed just to be rid of the sight of it. Moll would probably insist on mending the fresh rips in the fabric so that it could be worn again or made into something else. Cloth was too expensive to be thrown away so cheaply, even though her dearest wish was to fling the thing out the window and have it borne by the winter wind to some far away place.

The sun crept slowly higher in the sky, and she found she was thirsty. Pumping water sounded like an impossible task just now, but there was no alternative. Venus made her way down the hall to the stairs, but a sound just behind her made her jump.

"Good morrow, Venus," Martin said as he leaned against the wall and looked her over. "Hast ye passed a pleasant night?"

She looked at him coldly. "Where is my share of the money I earned?"

Martin laughed loudly. "Now ye thinks like a whore! Like all of the rest, ye shalt have yer due at the end of the week. Tis most regular for the girls to have two pennies apiece, but as ye did so well, I shall let ye have a full five this once. But there are other matters to be dealt with first," he leered at her pointedly as he herded her into his own room.

Her second time proved to be no less painful than the first, though the white-hot anger she felt at the man looming over her provided a thread that kept her sane. Disgust flooded through her, and she wondered if it would always be this way or if she would eventually feel nothing at all.

It was close to noon when he at last told her to get dressed and leave. Jane was coming up the hall as she exited Martin's room, and her mouth quirked sympathetically.

"Come, Venus," she said matter of factly. "There's a crust left for ye in the kitchen. Wish ye to bathe?"

"Aye," she said tiredly.

"Fine. We'll fill the tub again once ye've eaten."

Jane spoke not at all as they lugged buckets to the kitchen, and Venus would have been glad for the lack of words if it were not for a pall she felt hanging in the air. It wasn't until the tub was filled and Jane stood with her back to her, washing dishes, that Jane spoke what was on her mind.

"Geoffrey had me last night. I think ye shouldst know," she said without turning around. "I'd no more choice in the matter than ye, so I offer no apologies."

Venus stared at the back of the other girl's head. "I don't understand."

"His friend what was with him bought me for him. He did naught but speak of ye for an hour, and ye was right. He did truly wish for ye. But in the end..." her voice drifted off and the dishes clinked softly. "They're men, Venus. No more, no less. Best learn that now than later. Don't sit in the water until yer wrinkled like a hag. Yer to work again tonight, after all."

Jane left abruptly, never once looking the other girl in the eye.

At nightfall, Venus, still wearing her blue dress, was in the main room along with the other girls for the first time. There was no shortage of admirers present, but it was still too early yet for Martin to decide what price he could get for her. She sat on a bench at one end of the room, trying to smile engagingly at all of the poor jokes that her possible customers were making, when she saw Geoffrey edging slowly into the room, obviously looking for her.

"If ye will excuse me, good sirs," Venus said quickly and walked rapidly towards him, hoping for some explanation.

"Good eve," she said in a deathly quiet tone.

"Good eve, Mistress Abigail," Geoffrey said, highly uncomfortable. "I hope ye bear no ill will against me."

"For yer inability to pay, nay. Twas not yer fault. For lying with Jane, aye, that doth strike the tinder," she hissed in an undertone.

Geoffrey blinked rapidly at this. "She hath told thee?"

"Aye. There art few secrets in a brothel. What say you?"

He seemed fascinated by a point a few inches over her head, and then suddenly blurted "I cry thee mercy! Twas not my own plan. I can pay for thee this night, perhaps. Wouldst like I do that?"

"And if tis too high, wilt take up with another whore? Dinah, mayhaps, or Lizzie or Gwen or Clara, or was Jane more to yer liking?" she spat out venomously.

"Mistress Abigail," he said, looking her straight in the eye, "I admit I like thee. Art a pretty thing, e'en if the cost is dear. I should like to have thee and no other, but I know full well my purse is small. Thou art my first choice, always."

"Speak plain, Geoffrey," she said under the cover of the noise of the room, "and think well upon thy answer. Dost love me?"

He shifted from foot to foot, then replied, "I desire thee heartily. Dost require more than that?"

She looked long into his face, feeling her heart freeze over at his words. What he felt had never been love, only lust. There was no road from Martin's door with him as escort.

"Nay, good sir. I require no more from my customers. I shall be most glad to service ye so long as Martin permits it," she answered, feeling a mask slip into place over her face.

Geoffrey's face brightened at her words, and she knew she'd given him precisely what he sought. He may not have wanted to call her a whore, but he did want to treat her as one. He was simply another one of them with prettier manners. She moved away from him to rejoin the others, the world an entirely different place.

As she casually flirted with one man after another in the room, hatred for each one of them seethed in her heart, but Venus had never been a stupid girl. If they were the enemy, they were ill prepared for her as a foe. She had been a fool, but no longer. Now, they were the fools.

Her weapons in her battle would be her beauty, her smile, her voice, her laugh, and she was well endowed with those attributes. With them, she would use their vanity, their lust, their desire to be found attractive by her against them, using them for her ends rather than they using her for theirs. What she meant to do was to get out of this place, away from Martin's ownership so she could be her own mistress, and whatever she had to do to make that a reality, she decided as she softly treaded the maze of customers, she would do it.

The change came over her swiftly. Her walk, pace by pace, became more sensuous and titillating, her laughter more and more honeyed, her expressions steadily more designed to please. If this is what they wanted, she would give it to them, and they would be the rungs of the ladder she would use to climb out of this pit. When she slept beside Geoffrey that night, she let herself feel nothing but the present of a shilling he had given her, burning like a live coal in the palm of her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.N.: The values of Elizabethan money in this section are based on the 1590s through early 1600s records found in the appendices of _Shakespeare: The Complete Works_ , edited by G. B. Harrison. Venus's price of ten pounds would have been the equivalent of the cost of one upper class woman's gown, or roughly $600 in an age when a skilled worker would make between $200 and $400 yearly.


	5. Isabelle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Venus takes matters into her own hands, but the path before her has many unforeseen twists.

1606-1608: London, England

Five years had passed since Venus's introduction into her new profession: five years filled with experiences she shut out as soon as the sun rose. It was long since she had lost count of the number of buyers. Several men took her as a favorite, coming regularly to her for their weekly or monthly or even yearly thrills. It had taken Geoffrey almost a year and a half to marry a respectable girl and begin his life as a family man and cobbler. Of course, he still occasionally visited "for the sake of times past" as he put it, but these times were few and far between. He now had three small children and a fourth well on the way, considering the way his wife's skirts were stacked up every time Venus passed her on the street.

Within the leaping house, time had left several changes. Clara had been throw out of doors two years ago with an unwanted child in her womb when she could no longer hide her condition. She was never seen again. A new girl had arrived not long afterwards: Nancy, who was so plain she was almost not taken in but who had been allowed to work there provided her only pay was meals, a roof over her head, and the clothes on her back. Lately, she had taken a cough that sounded suspiciously harsh, and Venus doubted she would live out the year. Gwen had a long, thin knife scar running down the length of her right arm, a souvenir from a customer who had chosen to use her to vent his frustrations over a gambling debt. Jane, Dinah, and Moll had all come down with a bout of fever a little over a year ago, but the younger girls had managed to pull through it. However, Jane had lost weight and was never truly well again, her heart sometimes seeming to beat out of its regular course. Dinah, on the other hand, had the mark of the illness stamped on her features, which became sharper and carried a constantly bitter expression, her handsome looks being almost entirely spoiled in the process.

Moll was now dead. Though perhaps only thirty years old, she had looked nearly half that over again in a time when thirty itself was considered on the brink of old age for a woman. Not many in the slums of London were able to survive that long. She had been buried with no funeral, no rites, and no coffin. Her body, an old sheet knotted around it, was carried on a bier out of the city and buried in a shallow grave near a crossroads since no decent church would have taken her remains. In a few days any evidence of her burial had been blotted out by travelers who had thrown small stones and refuse on the place as a token of their disdain and fear of a damned soul. Among those who flung pebbles and smashed crockery on her grave were men who had bought her in years past.

Martin didn't speak about her passing, but he did get quite drunk for a full day. Once that day was done, he continued on as if nothing had happened, selling off her things to pay for what he called her "expenses" and pocketing the money. Venus had seen enough death to know that the same fate awaited all of them sooner or later, and she was revolted, but she gave herself cold comfort in knowing that by the time she was put in a grave she would most likely have far more pressing worries to deal with than where her body was stowed.

Venus herself, however, had blossomed. The girl who even as a half-starved gutter rat had been beautiful enough to cost a small fortune had benefited from food and shelter. When let loose, as it always was in the evenings, her hair fell in lush golden ripples to her waist. Her face had lost the rather gaunt look it had always worn from malnourishment since childhood and had become softer and almost heart-shaped. She had managed to sprout three full inches in two years before she stopped growing, making her one of the tallest women Martin had. But it was her eyes and her smile that had changed the most. When she willed it, she could make them as warm and perfect as a summer's day, beckoning the most austere men to follow her like puppies trailing after the butcher's delivery boy. In Martin's presence, most of the time she had learned to adopt an attitude of submissive obedience by lowering her eyes and slightly pursing her lips, managing to spare herself the beatings she would have received during those other times when her temper would get the better of her. But when she was alone, the glint that those blue orbs held was sheer, unadulterated greed, and she rarely smiled except when counting her secret stash of gold.

There was a loose stone in the hearth of her room, not unlike that brick in the kitchen long ago, and beneath she had hollowed out a small hole in the broken mortar. This was where she kept the coins her admirers would give her as tokens of their esteem or in hopes of another favor, hopes that she usually granted. Most of her small pay each week had been secreted away as well. Martin assumed that she had spent it on material for a new dress or cap, but he didn't realize she had made her own business transactions with the cloth merchant, and in trade he always gave her a much lower price.

It had taken as many years as she had fingers on one hand, but at long last she had what she needed. She had counted it over three times though the amount was burned into her mind and she would have bet her pretty teeth that she'd counted right before. But it really was time. At last. She caught up the coins in a leather bag and muffled their clinking with wadded cotton, then put it carefully inside her petticoats. She grabbed her wrap from the bed and threw it over her shoulders, drawing the hood up to keep out the November chill.

"I'm off to market," she called loudly as she strode down the hallway, eluding Martin's door without trouble and practically flying down the street, well past the market and the shops and the endless hovels and brothels that hemmed in the section of town. After almost an hour of walking, the air wasn't quite so foul. Soft, green parkland stretched away from her, bordered by lovely homes, nothing so grand as that the Worthshires owned but each a bit larger and far better built than Martin's leaping house. Respectability hung in the air like a ripe apple. Decent middle class families occupied each dwelling, well-heeled children played in the park that had once been the King's hunting grounds, and the smell of wood smoke and baking bread instead of rancid ale wafted from the doorways. That is, all the doorways save one.

That one stood quite empty. The windows in its relatively clean, half-timbered facing were without hangings and showed vacant rooms within. Only a table and a few other oddments of furniture that the previous occupants had left behind were scattered under a thin veneer of dust. However, a tall, thin, balding man stood in the dooryard, looking anxiously this way and that until he saw Venus approaching.

"Ah, yes," he said nervously. "M-m-m-mistress..."

"Trestle, sir. Mistress Isabelle Trestle, as I told thee at our last meeting, is the name I prefer to use now," she responded with a sweet smile. "I did so enjoy that meeting, Mister Draver. Did not thee feel likewise?"

"Aye," the man said in a slightly too high voice as the woman pressed in a bit closer to him and gave him a look that would have caught stone on fire. "Aye, most assuredly, m'lady."

"Good. Now, hast thou the documents?" she asked, managing to keep the desperate excitement from her voice.

"They are within. But, Mistress Ven... Mistress Trestle, I beg pardon, art sure this is wise?" asked Draver, still looking about like a caged animal. "The house is not what... what ye are used to at all, is it now?"

She turned her back and rolled her eyes at his inability to confront the truth in plain words.

"Mister Draver, what thou mean is that those persons who hold the higher offices at your establishment might not take it well to heart if they found thou hadst allowed one in a profession such as mine own to purchase this place. I pray you, speak what is in thy head," empty as it is, she added silently.

Looking over his shoulder, he quickly escorted her into the house and shut the door behind them. The privacy gave him some tiny spark of backbone.

"Aye, tis that. And that yer neighbors wouldst most like not be fond of such a one as ye, at that," Draver added quickly.

"Hast been settled, good sir," she said in her most reassuring velvet tones. "The family who hast asked thee to put forth this place for them asks naught but the money, aye?"

"Aye," he said uncertainly.

"And money shalt they have, in full. They need not be told who gives the gold, need they?" she said, lowering her voice into a coaxing murmur.

"Nay, they have no intention to come this way again, so they'd not know," he said, still with traces of doubt clinging to him.

"And I have given thee my word, good sir, that all will go on here most discreet. I have no wish to be thrown from this place, nor," and she drew her hand softly down his face, playing with his beard, "do I wish to bring aught of trouble upon such a man of great import as thee. Twould be foolish of one so helpless and frail as I to injure one so powerful as thy good self. I am but pitiful in all."

He was obviously at the very end of his resolve, and she was making him putty in her hands.

"Have ye the gold here?" he croaked out.

"Indeed, good sir," she said as she dropped her gaze to the floor with a coquettish smile and used her charms to their full extent. "Where are the papers?"

"Upon the kitchen mantelpiece. Sign at leisure, Mistress," he said at last.

A quill, inkpot, and sheaf of papers sat on the broad stone mantle in the next room. He carefully pointed to the spot that needed her mark, and she made an X on the space.

"And the gold, Mistress Isabelle?" he asked as he put a ribbon around the papers.

With a smile that entirely concealed her loathing, she gave him a look that let him know precisely where he would have the privilege of finding it. By the time he left an hour later, he didn't even care that the amount was two pounds less than he'd bargained for, which Isabelle had counted on. He would put in the final bit himself with a whistle and a song.

As the door closed and Isabelle looked around her, she had a strange, fluttering feeling deep in her stomach. Hers. This place was hers and hers alone. True, it didn't have more than a stick or two of furniture, and there would be precious little to live off until she could bring her most discreet and wealthy customers here to carry on their liaisons in privacy, but there was no Martin. The fluttering increased until at last she let it out for what it was: a laugh, a real, honest, joyous laugh unlike any she'd felt bubbling up within her since the days when she'd worn jerkin and hose. It nearly made her hoarse, but she laughed until her sides were black and blue from her stays and she didn't give a tinker's damn for the bruises.

She took the key from the mantle, rushed to the door, and locked it behind her, then fairly danced across town once more. By this time, it was mid-afternoon. She knew she would have been missed hours ago, and Martin would most likely be readying a belt for her on her arrival, but her plans were quite different.

She burst through the front door and ran up the stairs to her room, quickly changing into the most worn dress she owned, that same dark blue woolen frock from so long ago. Hurrying, she grabbed the few things she owned that weren't community property: a brush, a pair of stockings that had been a gift from an admirer, and a few pence she stored in a drawer of her nightstand to keep Martin from becoming suspicious about her hoarding. In only a moment, she was outside Jane's door, knocking rapidly.

"Aye?" came her voice from within.

"Open the door and be quick," Isabelle whispered urgently.

"Tis early yet, Venus," Jane said as she let her in. "We're not needed downstairs yet."

"We'll not be needed downstairs ever again, Jane," she said with a wide smile. "I told ye once that I'd not forget yer kindness to me so long ago. Tis time I repaid ye in full."

"What say you?" Jane asked in confusion. "Art well, Venus?"

"Quite well. I have just bought a house, a true one, one that isn't so full of holes that the wind screams through the walls and the rain forms lakes on the floor. Tis mine, Janey, and I want ye to come with me there this night, ne'er to see Martin again," Isabelle said as Jane stared at her. "We'll choose our own buyers, only the best, and need not live like pigs anymore."

"Ye've gone mad," Jane said quietly. "Quite mad. Tis not possible."

Isabelle reached into the bosom of her dress and pulled out the key. "Looks this like a madwoman's dream? Hurry! Pack only what that odious ox cannot call stolen from him and let's away."

Jane stared a moment longer, then reached out a finger and touched the key in Isabelle's hand as though sure it would dissolve into dust. When it didn't, she blinked, and a smile started to slowly form on her weathered face.

In a flurry of movement between the two, Jane was ready in even less time than Isabelle had been, and the two walked, unable to suppress giggles that sounded strangely girlish to their ears, down the hall and the stairs, and had nearly passed the door when Martin suddenly appeared and slammed it in their faces.

"What is this? Tis near time for them to arrive, and ye both not painted nor dressed for work, and laughing most merry. Tis unseemly," he growled dangerously. "I'd have thought ye'd have learnt to hate the strap by now, but it appears yer all but begging me to use it. Well then, I shall not deny ye."

"Indeed? I think not, Martin," Isabelle said clearly with a haughty glare. "We no longer need yer kind protection or tutelage. We've both done with ye. Is not so?" she said, looking to Jane.

"Tis," Jane agreed but looked at Martin with some trepidation.

"Leaving are ye? After all the gold I've spent on ye, savin' ye from hunger and cold, this is the gratitude given?" Martin bellowed. "I'll not have it!"

It was precisely at this moment when he seemed ready to thrash the two within an inch of their lives, that the door suddenly was thrust open from the outside, battering Martin on the back of the head and making him fall forward. The pair of customers, who had arrived a bit earlier than usual, stared in confusion as Jane and Isabelle ran like lightening through the now unblocked door. They were free.

They arrived outside the door of number 36 Garden Street just as night fell. The key was turned in the lock, and with a click, they were inside and safe. Isabelle had led Jane in a circuitous route, making sure they weren't followed. Somewhere on the other side of the city, there were noisy, drunken buyers demanding to know where the Venus of the Thames had gone, and Martin was nursing a cracked pate and swearing with great creativity. But here, at last, there was quiet.

Isabelle rounded up some of the scraps of broken furniture on the floor and put them in the fireplace, striking a flint stone to spark flames into life. They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the bright fire dance in the hearth and cast a homey light over the front room.

"I'll not be called Venus again," Isabelle eventually said. "I hated that name from the first. Tis Isabelle Trestle who owns this house, and I am she."

Jane nodded. "Isabelle. It suits ye, better than Venus did most sure. Jane was ever my name, so I think I shall keep it."

"Ye'll do as ye wish now, Jane. Keep it or not as you like. Tomorrow we'll hatch plans, but for now, sleep. There's no beds as yet, but the stones on the floor belong not to Martin. I intend to sleep well upon 'em," Isabelle said as she claimed a bit of space near the hearth, pulling her dress tightly around herself to keep warm.

"Thank ye, Isabelle," Jane said solemnly. "I ne'er thought to be... I thank ye."

Isabelle opened one eye from her spot on the floor. "Not another word. Get you to sleep or I'll throw you out in street," she said with a smile, then rolled over and slept very soundly.

Outside, three forms skulked away in silent fury, repelled by the barrier that had gone up across the threshold of one of their favorite hiding spots as soon as a living person had taken up residence there. They had considered burning it to the ground in spite, but the alarm that would have been raised could cause problems for them, and there were other vacant buildings to call home, after all.

The next day brought a few problems, but nothing could break the happiness of the mood. Between them they had a small bit of money, so they each bought an egg to roast in the ashes of last night's fire. Still, the house has nearly as empty as a cave and filled with dust and the smells of disuse. They would need some funds quickly to keep their new neighbors from growing suspicious.

As it was, after finishing their small but strangely satisfying breakfast, they began the process of making the house livable again after several months without a human inside it. Oddly, the cobwebs and vermin weren't nearly as bad as Isabelle had counted on. It was almost as though someone had occasionally used the place, but it didn't seem like beggars. There were no ashes in the fireplaces and no peelings or scraps or other signs of food. Unless they'd had no need for warmth or sustenance, they'd been extremely neat tramps.

The price of a few rags, scrub brushes, and a bucket nearly emptied their pockets completely, but they couldn't seem to care. The cleaning went remarkably fast, and within a day, the entire bottom floor was shining like a diamond in the dawn light. It was nearly three o'clock when a knock came at the front door. Jane, who happened to be closer, opened it, and there stood a little boy of seven or eight.

"Please, mistress," said the child politely, "my lady mother doth ask thee and thy sister to share bread with us tonight. We live in the house that sits yon," he said pointing next door. "Will it please you to come?"

Jane smiled behind her hand at the boy. If his "lady mother" only knew! Still, she and Isabelle had no dinner of their own to eat tonight.

"Aye, we should be glad of the company," Jane said, trying to sound as formal as possible. "Tell thy mother we shall gladly accept her kind hospitality."

The boy bowed quickly and ran to his own house, all but losing his shoe in his haste as he loudly called out "Mother! They said aye!"

"Aye to what?" Isabelle asked curiously.

"We're invited to sup next door tonight," Jane answered.

Isabelle seemed to regard this for a moment. "Well, I didn't expect to have this happen so quickly, but was bound to be so. We needs must think of a plan."

"They already think us sisters," said Jane.

"Good. That will do to begin withal. We'd best try to look proper for tonight, sister dear," Isabelle said as she began to pat the worst of the cleaning stains out of her dress.

The bells had chimed seven in the church tower when Isabelle and Jane arrived for dinner. As it turned out, the boy's mother was about the same age as Jane, and her brood of children was so numerous it was impossible to count them all. Her husband was a stern-faced man, his hair prematurely gray and his eyes very sharp. Fortunately for them, he wasn't the type to frequent their previous residence.

"Good even, ladies," he greeted them as they sat at the table. "I am called Henry Kentfield. This is my good wife Katherine. Children! Leave off this at once! Ye'll have dinner in the nursery, as is yer usual custom."

The children filed out in an orderly line, perhaps a little too orderly for Isabelle's liking. The oldest boy, the one who had spoken to Jane, had his jaw slightly open as he stared at the pretty blonde lady until one of his brothers slugged him in the arm and he fell back into step with the others. At least one of them had taste, she thought wryly.

In spite of Katherine Kentfield's repeated proclamations that the meal was "nothing but a trifle," the table all but groaned under the weight of a brace of fat chickens, three loaves of bread, small mountains of onions and parsnips and leeks, and a tray of sweetmeats. Both Isabelle and Jane had to forcefully remind themselves not to gape at the food and to eat daintily, as was the custom for ladies. Still, in spite of etiquette, they managed to eat their fill. Isabelle's childhood occupation proved highly useful to her once again as she covertly stowed enough food in the hip pockets of her dress to last them for a good three days.

Unfortunately, during the dinner it became all too obvious why they had been invited. Katherine was undoubtedly the neighborhood gossip, and she had asked them here in order to learn before anyone else who the two mysterious women were who had taken up residence in the former Whitby house. She plied them with questions at each bite, salivating over the answers far more than they were over the food.

"Indeed, Mistress Trestle," said Katherine between mouthfuls of bread. "And yer dear husband has been dead these two years now, has he?"

Isabelle nodded sadly, brushing her hand quickly across her eyes. "Aye, tis so long since Roger hath been gone."

"Then why do you not wear mourning?" she asked a bit sharply.

"Ah, Roger did forbid me to do so on his deathbed," she invented quickly. "He said he did not want that I should pine for him."

"I see," said Katherine quickly, using her knife to spear a roasted onion from the platter and swallowing it nearly whole. She was, the two noted, either remarkably fat or pregnant again, perhaps both. "And no children?"

"Nay," she said softly. "I have no children. I am but a poor widow who wishes naught but peace and a bit of privacy, Mistress Kentfield."

"And thou? What of thee, good lady?" Katherine asked Jane swiftly.

"I," Jane stammered a bit, "I am sister to Isabelle."

Katherine gave them an appraising look. "There's little similarity of features between thee."

"True," Jane said, "but I favor our mother and she our father."

"And hast ne're married at thy age?" Katherine said, her eyebrow rising in consideration.

Isabelle took in Jane's half-panicked expression and dove in. "She hath had many a suitor, my sister, but she hath turned them all away. Jane has... has taken a vow of maidenhood."

Jane stole a look at her over the top of her wine goblet that clearly said she expected the entire house to be engulfed in lightening from on high at any moment. Isabelle returned the look with an unseen shrug. If they were going to do the thing, they might as well do it to the hilt.

"Indeed," said Katherine in a surprised voice. "Tis most irregular."

"I prefer to keep my reasons private," she managed to squeeze out in a satisfactorily confident voice, but Isabelle could see that things were beginning to spiral out of control.

By the end of dinner, when Isabelle and Jane were escorted by a pair of the Kentfield's servants to their own door, they had learned far more than they ever wanted to hear of the business of every person within a mile radius of their new house, down to the exact numbers of children, the names of pets, and the cost of their furnishings to the last farthing. One thing had become patently obvious. They had moved next to the most avid gossiper in all of London and perhaps in all of the island. Once they shut their own door, they both let out matching gasps of relief.

"What was the name of yer husband again, Is? Robert or Roger?" Jane asked in amused confusion.

"Ask me not. I've no clue," Isabelle responded as she emptied her pockets of the extra provisions. "Above all else, even if we starve to death, let's keep well out of the claws of that creature. She'd call for us to be clapped in irons faster than a raindrop falls."

Jane nodded dolefully. "This complicates matters a mite."

The next day, Isabelle was quickly on the lookout for customers. She had half a dozen regulars who would be looking for her already, but she needed to be careful and only approach those that wouldn't immediately give Martin her address. She imagined he would learn where she was eventually, but, if she was firmly ensconced at her new residence by then, it would be impossible for him to drag her away by force without drawing undo attention to himself, and Isabelle knew that was the last thing he would want, especially in this part of London. Eventually, she decided on paying a call on one of her wealthier and more smitten clients.

After following her quarry with due care through the business streets until an opportune time presented itself, she managed to catch Sir Wilbert as he was coming out of a fashionable hatter's store. With a delicate "hssst!" she drew his attention into a nearby alleyway where they would be screened from view.

"Mistress Venus," he said after carefully making sure that no one had seen him. "What are ye doing here? I've called for ye at Martin's, and he says he hath thrown out ye and Jane for... becoming a burden."

Isabelle managed to refrain from making her eyes roll in exasperation over the man's ludicrous delicacy in not wanting to mention the word "pregnant" when he was all but delicate in her chambers, and she swallowed the curse that sprung to her lips over Martin's usual lies.

"Nay, nay, Jane and I have but taken up a new residence, Sir Wilbert. I was afraid Martin might deal with things this way and not let my very favorite young man know whence I had gone," she said, pouting prettily up at Sir Wilbert's decidedly not young face. "Wouldst still like to be my friend, good sir?"

"Aye," Sir Wilbert said enthusiastically, "indeed I should."

"How glad I am! We are at number 36, Garden Street," she said quickly.

"Gard... but Venus, that's not... I mean, that place is," Sir Wilbert fumbled.

"I know, tis not the same sort of place as Martin's. Oh, tis much nicer, sir, and no drunken louts will bother thee or thieves give thee trouble," Isabelle enthused. "And what's more, I have left my old name behind me. I am now Isabelle, good sir."

"Isabelle, eh? Well, Mistress Isabelle, may I call on ye tonight?"

"I should like that very much, Sir Wilbert. Wilt be by when the bells strike seven?" she asked.

"Indeed, and I shall bring a friend for Mistress Jane as well. Is the... ehm... price the same as at Martin's?" he asked.

"Just the same as ever," she said with a smile, noting that his delicacy didn't extend to his pocketbook. "I'll look forward to our meeting, then. Oh, but good Sir Wilbert, might I implore thee for a scrap or two of charity beforehand?"

By the time she had left the alleyway, she had enough money to procure two beds to be delivered to Garden Street that day, a necessary business expense.

Winter turned to spring, then spring to summer, and summer led to an autumn when the light came through the curtained windows of number 36 and fell on a pleasant scene of comfortable, stylish furniture and a warm fire. Isabelle and Jane employed a maid and a cook now, each of whom knew how to keep silence, and the upper floors were masterworks of good taste and decorum. Isabelle was still far more popular with the gentlemen who called than Jane was, often spending evenings at the theatre with her paying companions, the whole party masked as was the custom, watching charming comedies written by Shakespeare, who was sometimes in attendance himself. There were balls and galas that she would attend, charming the nobility with her wit and beauty, and when it was breathed in whispered words behind heavily jeweled hands that she was a courtesan, far more often than not she found she had some new suitor by morning. Courtesan: the word was so much prettier than whore, though the meaning was the same. And, as she'd learned to do what felt like a lifetime ago, she felt nothing with each.

Jane, meanwhile, though not as fortunate as Isabelle, was still living better than she ever had before. There were no beatings, no sharp words, and if the clients treated either of them with cruelty they were dismissed at once. True, there was emptiness a plenty in the work itself, but in spite of their current pleasant state, there really was nothing else they were able to do.

Still, both knew a time would come when beauty would fade, and each set aside a portion of her earnings to support herself in the time to come. Honestly, Isabelle was almost looking forward to the day when she would see silver threads in her hair and lines upon her cheek, when she could retire once and for all from this business and live quietly elsewhere, perhaps in the country. Still, for now, compared to what she had known, hers was not a bad life.

The neighbors had long ago given up trying to understand the odd comings and goings from number 36, all except for Katherine Kentfield. She suspected what was going on and spied on the pair of supposed sisters day and night, but she was never able to catch them in anything conclusive. The gentlemen who called were always gone well before dawn, and the few times when she'd been so bold as to approach one going in the house to ask him what business he had there, he always replied with the same answer: the Trestle sisters created the most beautiful embroidery and lacework he'd ever seen.

On an airy October evening full of the scent of leaves from the park, a strange chance befell Isabelle. It wasn't the least bit unusual for one of her clients to refer a friend to her anonymously, and so it was tonight. Sir Wilbert had asked her leave to have a dear companion visit her that evening, and she had smiled graciously, saying any friend of Sir Wilbert's was most welcome in her home. Silently, she added that any rich friend of Sir Wilbert's would find an even warmer welcome.

When Isabelle swept dramatically down the stairs that night and to the very ordinary-looking man in his forties who stood awkwardly in the main room, he blinked rapidly at her.

"Ah, I take it I have the pleasure of meeting the famous Mistress Isabelle? Justly famous, to be sure, as your beauty is all that has been said," he declared politely.

"I thank thee, good sir," she said with a curtsy. "Dost thou wish to delight me with thy name in turn, or wilt you wish to keep that as thy own affair?"

He tilted his head, considering for a moment before finally coming to a decision. "I am called Sir Stephen Grashill," he said, and thankfully he was looking at the tapestry above the fireplace and missed Isabelle's eyes popping in surprise.

This was Millicent's husband. Isabelle had once met his brother Frederick, leading to that scene which still haunted her in nightmares, but she had never laid eyes on Stephen before. Well, well, well, she thought with a shudder, things do come full circle, don't they?

"I am most pleasured to meet thee, Sir Stephen," she said without the slightest tremor in her voice.

As it fell out, Sir Stephen was highly taken with the lovely lady and became one of her most frequent visitors. However, as was usually the case with such men, the subject of his dear wife was never raised. Isabelle couldn't help her curiosity, though, about what had become of the stupid fool of a girl whose indiscretions had landed her in the street, not to mention what had become of the devious Lady Worthshire. She was not so stupid as to ever raise the topic, biding her time and waiting to see what fortune would drop in her lap.

Her patience was rewarded eventually. As Sir Stephen called upon Isabelle for his usual weekly appointment one Friday eve, she noticed he was reeling drunk, a thing highly unusual for the normally sober and, to be frank, quite boring Sir Stephen. That night he was in remarkably good spirits and was quite possibly the giddiest man she'd ever seen.

"Well, good friend," she cried happily as he grabbed her by the waist on their meeting and spun her dizzily through the air, "you are in remarkably high mood this eve! Pray you, what has made you so merry? Tis not just seeing me again, is it?"

He plopped her clumsily back on her feet, then got down on his knees and very noisily kissed her hand with an extremely loud smacking sound. Isabelle eyes were wide in surprise at the complete lack of decorum in the man, but she wondered if she was at last going to get a peek at what his life was like.

"Good Mistress Arabella," he slurred drunkenly, and Isabelle frowned at the completely wrong name, "it looks as though at long last my wife's father will be handing over the title of Worthshire to me."

"You don't say so," Isabelle said, her mind clicking quickly. "What generosity has prompted this?"

"Aye, he died didn't he?" he said with a loud laugh. "Took his time about it, but he finally did it."

"So you are now in possession of all his property, eh?" Isabelle said, quickly calculating just how much her tip for the evening might run.

"Indeed, my pretty little wench," he said, pinching her cheek. "Indeed. Bless him for it and bless his dear reprobate brother!"

"Lord Henry had no brother," Isabelle said before she could stop herself. "I mean to say..."

Luckily, Sir Stephen was so drunk he didn't even notice the gigantic slip. "Nay, not any more. Lord Henry was the younger of the two, so by rights, when their father died, the estate should have gone to his elder brother, but he went and got himself fairly disowned. No one hast spoken of him for years."

"How very fortunate for you," she said, pouring him a nice, large goblet of wine to keep him talking. "Now, what could he have done to have earned such a mark of disgrace?"

"Faith, he married," Sir Stephen said as he downed the goblet at a gulp and held it out for more, which Isabelle gave him.

"Twas not a favored match?" Isabelle prompted him carefully.

"Nay, he did marry a pretty young thing, incomparable eyes, but she was Jewish. The Worthshire family was outraged, but he chose love over all," Sir Stephen said with a snort. "Lost the whole fortune. Silly fool. Should have taken the girl as his mistress and married whom he was told."

"Thou art wise indeed, Sir Stephen," Isabelle praised him as she refilled his cup yet again. "But will it not be a worry to thee that he may come back to bother thee? I'd not want a good friend such as thee to be troubled."

"Nay," he said, regarding the world through the bottom of the glass. "He's been dead of the plague now many years."

"And his wife?" she asked, wondering if she could get an answer from him before he passed out.

"Oh, she died afore he did," he said with a mindless giggle. "My wife, Millicent... I don't recollect as I've ever talked to ye of Millicent?"

"Nay, thou hast not," she told him, realizing he must be even more drunk than she thought for him to bring up his wife.

"Aye, well, she did tell me her little family secret," he said in a whisper. "The wife didst die in childbirth. Twas a girl."

Isabelle knew what had happened. There was almost no need to be told the rest. As she sank down into a chair, her knees failing her completely, she turned white as the meat of an apple.

"And what became of this child?" she asked in a tone that, in spite of her years of training, trembled fearfully.

"When the father died, which he did not long after her birth, she was delivered to the Worthshires with a note asking for her to be cared for or else God's curse be upon them for it. Lord Henry was a most superstitious man, so he did take her in, but she wast naught but the scullery maid. She died when she was but ten years old, not long afore I married Millicent. Most ugly, she said she was, and a thief as well."

Isabelle didn't move for a very long time, but as Sir Stephen had kindly taken the opportunity to lose consciousness across the flagstones, this went unnoticed. Her face was dewed with sweat, and her heart was beating faster than she could ever remember it doing. They had been her family: her uncle, her aunt, her cousin. She should have had the rightful place as Lady Worthshire from infancy. The child of the heir to one of the largest fortunes in London had been forced to work as a slave, a pickpocket, and a whore simply to live.

And there was never a damn thing she could have done about it.

Jane woke early the next morning to find Isabelle still sitting in the chair over Sir Stephen's insensible form, staring at thin air.

"What grieves ye?" she asked, her brows knit in worry. "Ye dost look a fright. Is aught wrong?"

Isabelle's eyes slowly focused on the other woman, and then a smile came to her face, a smile utterly without joy, the smile of someone whose mind was nearly unhinged.

"All is wrong, Janey," she said, and began to laugh in a horrifyingly cold, almost violent way. "All is wrong!"

The laughter continued for a long while in spite of Jane shaking the woman, and at length it turned into tears, great, sobbing tears that shook her tiny, silk-draped frame as she clung to her friend, unable to say a single word. Jane led her upstairs slowly and put her to bed, where she remained, eating nothing, for two days. Sir Stephen remembered none of his confessions at all but went happily on his way to take possession of the house that still held his mother-in-law.

Isabelle never told Jane what had been revealed to her. When at last she had pulled herself together and gathered her scattered wits, she swallowed the latest in a long line of bitter pills with complete silence. Jane had suggested that Sir Stephen should be kept out of the house after that, but Isabelle refused, explaining he hadn't tried to harm either of them and was still one of the best paying men they had. Jane kept quiet on the subject, deciding that Isabelle must have her reasons, though she was always ill at ease around the man after that.

For a few months, everything remained just as it had. The buds on the tree in the front dooryard slowly grew green and put forth leaves, and the chill in the air became less each day. Spring let a slow, smooth blanket of green unfold itself in the park across from their residence, and Isabelle spent a good hour each morning watching the sun sparkling off the dew-laden grass from the view of her bedroom window. No matter what things crept around her heart or what things she did, that vista was always perfect, untouched as a faraway dream and as unsullied as the first snowflakes of winter. Turmoil might reign sometimes inside the house and her soul, but never out there.

Everything had grown peaceful, and the two "sisters" were becoming used to the regular ebb and flow of the days. Isabelle had become far and away the most popular companion for the lower levels of nobility, and Jane, whose clients grew sparser, while perhaps not content with her life was at least not uncomfortable and was drawing near a point where she would be able to live on the remainder of her wages for the rest of her life. But it was a calm that preceded a tempest.

Isabelle was out that morning. Drizzle was speckling the cobbles that day, but she had decided to brave the damp weather to go to the market on the most frivolous of errands. She wanted a spray of lilacs for the hall table. The buds were now in bloom, and there would be farmers selling the fragrant blooms from stalls at the market. Normally, this would have fallen to the maid as her errand, but the girl had twisted her ankle last week and wasn't fit to walk far. So it was that Isabelle slung a basket on her own arm and, with a warm cloak about her to keep off the rain, wound her way through the streets of London to buy a handful of flowers.

She had barely been gone an hour before she returned to Garden Street, the basket spilling over with an abundance of purple flowers. The gentle, heady fragrance had made her smile, and she was so preoccupied that she almost didn't notice the noise until it was too late.

There was a very large crowd of people blocking off the road, most of them shouting and some quite drunk. A strange, cold feeling like a hand of ice closing around her heart struck Isabelle, and she instinctively pulled the hood of her cloak more tightly around her and abandoned the conspicuous flowers over a neighbor's fence, calling no attention to herself at all.

With growing dread, she noticed that crowd was, as she had feared, clambering closer to her own home. It wasn't a fire. Of that she was sure since there was no smoke. With skills she had never lost, she eased her way slowly closer. She was most fortunate to find an old woman speaking to a young man, asking the very questions she most wanted answered.

"What goes on here?" the crone asked in rusty tones. "Why do they block my way? If I do not return to my mistress's house with the bread quickly, she'll turn me out of doors."

"Ye'd best find another path then, for they are not likely to move. The sheriff hath come to arrest two women of evil repute in yon house," the man said, and Isabelle's arms stiffened.

"Evil repute, say you? Indeed, tis an odd place for such as they. What hath brought about this?" the woman asked with interest.

"Merry, one of them did carry on assignations with Lord Brookside, and indeed his lady wife did find it out. She is close kin to the king, ye knowest, and he hath decided to let her make an example of the wench what lives here and her counterpart," the man said as he almost lazily chewed an apple.

"Example? How so?" the woman asked.

"Truly, they have caught one and but wait for the other now, who was not about. The woman who is held, called Jane, is to be flogged in the square and to have her nose split by the law, then she may go her own ways, but the other, who is named Isabelle, is to be burned alive as a witch since Lady Brookside hath said that none but an evil sorceress could tempt her husband away from her. The king hath given his blessing upon it," the young man said as he threw the core of his apple from him.

Isabelle's jaw was clenched. It had been that stupid Lord Percival Brookside? A sorceress to tempt him from his good wife's side indeed! He had engaged half the prostitutes in the city that she knew of! Of all the men to bring them down. But Jane... she must see to Jane.

It was just then that a wild cry of the crowd's erupted as a confusion of movement happened near their front door. Even at this distance, Isabelle knew what had happened. They were leading Jane forth, and a few moments later, the sound of a horse-drawn cart could be heard amidst the jeering of the people. Prominent among them was dear Katherine Kentfield, babbling in proud tones to everyone she passed how she had know for months that the Trestle sisters were nothing but "the lowest of drabs, fit for naught but hell itself."

From a distance of ten feet away, Isabelle saw Jane cowering in the back of the cart like a frightened child, her eyes enormous. Isabelle's mind fluttered from one useless scheme to the next, each more improbable and doomed to failure as she watched the procession of the guards file past, the large number testament to the king's backing of everything being done. There was only one option left.

Isabelle ran like mad in the opposite direction, losing herself in the crowd.

All she could do was try to save her own skin. While Jane's fate would be terrible, at least she would be alive, she thought. They wanted Isabelle dead. She wandered for a bit aimlessly through the streets, trying to think clearly. There was not a customer she had who wouldn't turn her over at once to the law in order to gain favor with the king. Some of Martin's girls might still have been friendly towards her, but Martin himself would throw her on the fire if it came to that. She considered going into hiding, but the danger was too close upon her. If she hid, she would need to go somewhere she would never be found: the other side of the earth.

Isabelle stopped cold. The Virginia Colony. She'd heard tell of it. It was a wild, untamed place full of danger and hardship, and it cost a small fortune to get passage on one of the ships there. Some said the place was full or gold and jewels just waiting over the next hill, but she knew this was the talk of idle dreamers. The reality was grim, but she knew that on this day a ship was set to sail for that place, and among the passengers were the first females to go to the colony. True, most of them were the lesser sons and daughters of nobility, but there had to be a way aboard. And that way, she was sure, was money.

She couldn't chance returning to her home. It was lost to her, along with all her things, her money, her clothes, all of it. She had nothing. Nothing except...

It was an insane plan, but the times called for insanity. She reached into the pocket of her dress and took out the three pence that still rested there, then walked with determination to a small store and bought a piece of parchment. Every step she took towards her final destination practically made her ill. As she went, she folded the paper in four, tore the edges, worried it between her fingers, and once stopped to rub it against the damp dirt of the cobblestones. By the time she reached the Worthshire's, she was as ready as she could be.

With a steady hand, she knocked on the door that she had sworn she would never enter again. A maid opened it, puzzled at the well-dressed woman who stood on the other side.

"May I help you, good lady?" she asked.

"Tell Lady Worthshire that she has a visitor," Isabelle said as she swept past her and into the house.

"Aye, Mistress, and who shall I say is here?" the maid asked uncertainly.

"Just bring her!" she fairly screamed, and the frightened maid took off at a run to find her.

The house remained almost exactly the same. The same portraits glared down on her disapprovingly, the same stairs creaked under the fleeing maid's shoes, the same rafters held the ceiling high above her head, and for a moment, she was ten years old again. She shook her head quickly to clear it, and as the figure of Lady Alice Worthshire, now fourteen years older than she had been when she had ordered Abbie put in stocks, appeared in the doorway, Isabelle steeled her resolve.

"And who, pray tell, do I have the honor of receiving?" she said in extraordinarily polite tones, at least until she knew who the stranger was.

"I have not time for pleasantries, Lady Alice," Isabelle said quickly. "It is who I am that brings me here."

"Indeed?" replied Lady Alice with a raised brow. "And what is it that thou art here for?"

"Dost thou not know me?" Isabelle said with a note of satisfaction. "I suppose I have changed marvelous much since we last met."

Lady Alice stared at the elegant woman with a complete lack of recognition, and then she began to squint. "Thou dost look familiar in some ways, though I cannot recollect."

"Picture me but smaller, with my bones fair ready to poke through my skin from hunger, my skin and hair smeared in dirt, and thou shalt come upon it quickly enough," she said coldly.

Lady Alice mouth went slightly slack with shock. "Tis not possible. Thou canst not be."

"Aye, tis thy very own little Abbie who ran away so many years ago. I have come home at last, and I do mean home," she said with a note of threat.

"Get out of my house," Lady Alice ordered her, her bearing suddenly threatening. "Ye've no place here."

"I might as well tell ye to get out of my house, hadn't I?" Isabelle responded, fire in her eyes. "It should have been mine, after all."

Lady Alice inhaled sharply. "So, hast found out all?"

"Aye," she said smoothly. "And now, yer to do something for me. I want passage on the ship that sails this day for Virginia."

"And why should I give ye aught, guttersnipe? Even with yer fine dresses and clean hands, yer still naught but the child of a disowned man. Get ye hence into the streets, and die there for what I care!"

"Oh, ye'll give it me, for I know ye of old, my good Lady Worthshire. Of all the things that most terrified ye, twas scandal that held the most stain. Know ye this. I am a whore. I have been a whore these many years. And now, the king doth want me burned as a witch. If that does happen, then the last thing I shall say when the stake is lit shall be my parentage, that the Worthshires are kin to a witch and a whore," Isabelle said in a deadly tone.

"None shall believe ye," Lady Alice replied calmly, though she grew slightly pale.

"Perhaps not, if it were not for this." Isabelle produced the paper from the pocket of her dress, a paper that looked like it could be well over two dozen years old now. "I believe there's a very moving passage about how God should strike you down if I were not treated well. Shall I read it to you, in the hand of your own dear, long dead brother-in-law?"

"It's impossible," Lady Alice gasped as she stared at the paper. "It was burned."

Isabelle then risked her greatest gamble. She was wagering her entire life on this one chance. "But, as usual, neither you nor my dear uncle did for yourselves what the servants could do instead. Servants sometimes do not do as they are told, do they, Auntie?"

The older woman's face blanched entirely white. Rage was etched into every line of her face, and whether it was a trick of the fire or not, sparks of red seemed to glow in her eyes. Isabelle returned the gaze with every atom of rage in her being. She held all the cards provided that no one looked at them.

"Ye will go and never come back?" Lady Alice said angrily.

"I'll never set a living foot upon this place again, I assure you," Isabelle vowed.

By nightfall, a young woman who called herself Sarah Gimble was lodged in a berth inside the creaking timbers of a sailing ship bound for the western horizon. She had a small bag of gold beneath her pillow, but aside from this, she had only the clothes on her back. As the waves crashed against the sides of the ship, rocking the passengers violently in the darkness, she wept over the fate of Jane, whose weakened heart had at last given out with the first cut of the whip.


	6. Sarah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The New World is the setting of a completely new life for Sarah, but not the one she envisioned. Things will never be the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am obviously indebted to the writer of the episode “Darla,” Tim Minear, from Angel for the dialogue at one point in this section.
> 
> This one took me a long time, but the research I had to do was somewhat exhaustive.

1608-1610: Jamestown, Virginia Colony

Sarah was restless. The long sea journey had been a strange experience for her. Never before in her life had she been forced to keep so still and do so little for so long. Weeks upon weeks had passed with the ceaseless beating of the waves on the hull and the full bellies of the sails the only discernable proof that they weren’t standing perfectly still in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. At first, it had been rather pleasant. Lady Worthshire had secured a small compartment, hardly a luxurious accommodation but still adequate, and Sarah was troubled very little by the seasickness that violently attacked so many of the other passengers. She had lost her breakfast a time or two at the beginning of the voyage, but, as always, she adapted to her surroundings with remarkable speed.

She had seen a few wonders in their travels. By day, she often stood on the deck, careful to stay out of the way of the sometimes dangerously irritated crew, and looked out over the ocean. The white-tipped waves spread in an endless dance all around her as far as the eye could see. There, far behind them, England had disappeared into nothingness. The New World lay invisible ahead of them, still shrouded in complete mystery. Here, in this space that was really no place at all, there was nothing but the pale blue of the sky and the dark blue of the water, the salt tang of the air and the wind that sped them on their course. Once, far off in the distance, she had seen a pair of whales spouting and breaching, their giant flukes slapping the water into foam. Aside from them, she had seen no one else except the passengers and crew for weeks.

There was precious little privacy on the ship. The other women tended to gossip about this and that in low tones, but Sarah took no part in their tales. Anything they learned about her would either be fodder for causing her problems later on or else flat lies, and those could be liabilities if, as lies so often are, they were found out. Hence, the other women, at least half of whom seemed to be named Sarah as well, regarded the pretty young miss as stand-offish and proud, and they spun their own tales about her, most of them missing the mark by miles.

After so many days that Sarah had finally lost count, she saw a gull circling above the deck. Its loud screams were delicious music to her, for they could mean only one thing. Land must be close at hand. Like many of the other passengers, and the crew as well, she strained her eyes to the west in the setting sun, trying to catch a glimpse of solid ground, but still the ocean seemed endless.

It was very early on the morning of the second day after the gull’s appearance that the cry went forth of “Land ho!” Even though dawn had barely broken behind them, every soul aboard the ship raced pell-mell to the bow, and there, shining orange and gold in the first rays of the sunrise, lay the thin, long line of land at the very edge of the horizon. The New World, Sarah thought. A place where no one knew her, and she knew no one. On the edge of the world, she was utterly alone.

Later that day, the ship sailed up the inlet near the Jamestown settlement in the Virginia Colony, and the boats were lowered to take the passengers and gear ashore. It was while she was waiting her turn to be ferried to the beach that Sarah first had the opportunity to study the land she expected to be her home for the rest of her life.

It was green, save for the areas that had been cleared by the colonists, and the trees looked like another ocean of endless waves. It felt strange to smell the scents of land wafting in on a breeze from the remote distance, but these weren’t the fragrances of home. The earth smelled different, she thought, and the trees and flowers of this world weren’t the same as the ones she had left behind. If she had been dropped on another planet, Sarah couldn’t have felt more utterly disorientated.

When the landing boat was grounded, she was in for an even deeper shock. Jamestown, which was all the Virginia Colony was so far, was nothing but a little triangle surrounded by high wooden palisades on all sides. The sharpened, interlocking sticks did little to quell the nerves of the fresh load of colonists who had disembarked. What were these defenses meant to keep out? The tiny colony was so small compared to London that it felt like the whole thing could have been contained with room to spare in one of the cathedrals back home. In the immensity of the continent, this tiny outpost was perched on the edge of nothing, and at its back lay the dark green forest, looking almost black, hungry enough to devour them whole.

They were met by a group of other colonists, some of whom had been there now for years, and their enthusiasm for the landed ship was almost overpowering. Sarah was quite sure, though, that the supplies they had brought were far more the cause of their joy than another shipload of mouths to feed.

Still, they seemed a pleasant enough lot. All males, the sight of women was a most welcome one. Sarah took a moment to realize that she was just the same as any other female here; that not one of these men thought of a price tag hanging around her neck, and strangely enough, she smiled. Perhaps going somewhere no one recognized her had its benefits. She took in the gaggle of men in their rustic clothes that all looked in desperately need of repair. Well, not the life she would have wished for herself, she thought, but if she had a chance to possibly belong for once instead of living on the scandalous fringes of society, she might as well take it.

Unfortunately, it was not to be.

No sooner had she entered the town’s gates than she heard a voice she knew all too well.

“Mistress… Mistress Isabelle?” said an unmistakably shocked voice to her left.

“Damn,” she muttered, thoughts of being just another one of the others crashing down around her.

“Sir Edward,” she replied as she maneuvered the pair of them behind one of the crude cabins that served for homes here, “my name is Mistress Sarah Gimble now. I beg thee to use that name.”

“Aye, most assuredly,” Sir Edward replied. “But of all the necessaries in the world that I expected the mother-county to send unto us, I never would have suspected they’d send along my favorite wench in the bargain! Come now, let’s have a look at ye, old girl. As pretty a whore as ever ye were. They certainly didn’t throw ye out for ugliness’s sake. We’ve been without female company so long that ye’ll be a most welcome commodity.”

Sir Edward was a greater fool than most, for he completely missed the look of disappointment followed by stoic acceptance that flitted across the woman’s features. She had entertained for a moment the possibility that she could impress upon Sir Edward that she was no longer what she had once been, but the thought had drained away in the same moment. Sir Edward was a blabber mouthed idiot, which was probably why his family had sent him to the opposite side of the globe. There was no chance he would ever agree to keep her secret.

Her new life was lost before it had even begun. In only a few hours, Sir Edward had spread the word through the camp like wildfire. The line of communication skipped over those very few men who would have taken offense to having a woman of her occupation in the colony, and by nightfall at least five had propositioned her. Firmly, she had rejected each one, claiming fatigue and illness from the long sea voyage, and while one had needed to be threatened with the tines of a hayfork before he accepted her answer, the others had been relatively understanding.

In truth, Sarah didn’t feel particularly well. The land seemed to be bucking like the sea had when their journey first started. Her complaint was not unique. The whole company was having trouble finding their land legs, and some of the worst were walking as though they were drunk. It was quickly decided that rest was in order for all. The new arrivals were led to a common house and given beds. No sooner had her head hit the pillow than she was asleep, and she remained so for nearly a full day.

Upon the next day after she awoke, the new colonists were called together with the old at the center of the town.

“Our purpose,” said the governor of the colony, one Mr. Charles Craft, “is to farm this area, to search for precious metals, and to find a water route to the East Indies. At this time, those of you who have but newly arrived in this land are yet in need of shelter and education on the ways of this place. Our laws are simple and few. We live by the principles of our mother England. Final authority for punishment is given over to me. Our food stores are replenished through farming and work, and all are to participate in this, even the ladies,” he said loudly, throwing a rather rude and disparaging look at the womenfolk. “You are to earn your places here. In return, dwellings are being prepared for you even now, and you shall eat of the food shares that have been grown thus far. Worship is at sunrise each Sabbath. Now, to your own chores, each man and woman of you.”

Thinking this a rather cold welcome, Sarah decided it was best to follow the line of women to the outdoor kitchens. Several large pots full of water were boiling on fires, and when the food stores were brought forth, stew was begun. While the others still thought her too high and mighty and too pretty to be one of them, she quickly proved her usefulness, and while not accepted she was at least let alone.

It was a full week before the men came around once more, and this time Sarah could give no excuse. Assignations were made in any number of highly uncomfortable and sometimes disgusting sections of the town by night, and by day she worked as the other women did: cooking, sewing, and tending to a thousand other endless tasks. Her price had dropped considerably. There was almost no gold in the town, but she found that the men had stashed away a considerable number of vegetables and dried beef that the Honorable Charles Craft knew nothing about. Thus it came to pass that by the time Sarah had a home, her small larder was well stocked beyond the lot of her fellows.

The New World, though, was not a particularly agreeable place for her. In fact, she very quickly developed a rash on her hands and feet, something she was sure was due to the strange plants in this place and the ceaseless biting of ticks in her bedding. Again, half the people of Jamestown had similar afflictions, but while theirs seemed to improve with time, her skin refused to heal. The itching drove her nearly mad, and she was reminded unpleasantly of her time with the measles. She wore gloves to hide the ugly, brown, coin-sized spots on her hands, and she applied all manner of remedies to them, but nothing gave her the slightest ease. Finally, after a few weeks, her skin seemed to have grown accustomed to the climate and the rash disappeared completely. A strange tiredness came and went now for her, though, and there were times a mild fever would strike her for a short time, but she refused to let such small matters bother her.

Eventually, winter came to pass, and the freezing temperatures of her new home made Sarah rethink the discomfort of being burned alive in nice, toasty-warm flames. The wind here was ten times harsher than in London, and the ice and snow piled high around the small town. Food stores were small, and even she found her supplies starting to grow thin. Still, there were men willing to trade with her, and she was able to keep her belly full enough as she always had.

It was in January when a firm knock on her door woke her from a sound sleep sometime past midnight. She had answered it and found Craft himself standing outside. He pushed his way through the door and into the small home. With the air of a man who considered himself as good as alone, he threw his heavy woolen coat over her only chair.

“Governor?” she asked uncertainly. “Is something you need of me?”

“Shut yer mouth, woman, and do the only thing it is ye’re good for. I’ve no need for aught else from ye,” he said as he continued undressing.

Sarah stared for a moment, then blew out her candle and did exactly as she was told.

Though he ruled the colony with an iron grip and preached forbearance and the importance of resisting temptation as hallmarks of their mission, he didn’t seem to apply that particular lesson to himself, at least not in private. Craft became one of her regular callers. He never treated her with any kindness, rarely speaking to her except in commands or insults. His demeanor was one of pure mastery, though truth be told he was far from the most skilled she’d ever had. He also never paid so much as a walnut. Sarah knew this game of old: it was a bit like being back with Martin. Power meant privilege.

Unfortunately, Craft’s desires were more demanding than most, often becoming brutal. There was anger and hatred in everything he did to her, and his tastes ran to the extremes of cruelty. She began to fear the man profoundly, half convinced that he might decide to kill her. He broke the lock off her door eventually, refusing to allow her to fix it, and many nights she would wake from a sound sleep to see him hovering over her like a crazed demon, the light of fanaticism and loathing making his eyes gleam in the darkness. He was a nightmare that wouldn’t disappear when she awoke, and there were times she wasn’t sure whether he had really been there or if evil dreams were plaguing her again until she saw the blood and bruises in proof. He was always very careful never to hit her anywhere that might be seen, and her other visitors, if they noticed at all, never spoke a word in question.

The winter seemed to drag on forever. February, March, April… it wasn’t until May that the last of the snow had melted and the icy blasts from the Atlantic finally stopped. Springtime in the New World had some charms, she thought. The wildflowers were pretty enough, and the birds sang sweetly in the newly-leaved trees, but it was entirely foreign to her. She’d spent her whole life in London, constantly surrounded by the clopping hooves of horses and the loud calls of shopkeepers hawking their wares. Even her own house in Garden Street had been noisy enough, but here there was always a strange, heavy quiet behind the colony’s feeble sounds.

She found the lack of human noise disconcerting at first, but she eventually grew to like it, often slipping outside the spiked wooden palisades and wandering a short way into the forest. Being alone was not new to her, but being alone by her own choice was. Although she knew there could be wild animals about, she was strangely fearless of them. She usually brought a musket with her if she was going at all far, and though the women were appalled her brazenness in touching a weapon, she didn’t trouble herself about what they thought. Oddly, she never encountered anything dangerous. Deer that were as startled by her as she was by them, a few playful squirrels and birds, the occasional black-masked raccoon or other small creature crossed her path, but that was all. Except for one very strange encounter

It had been beneath some of the deepest shade in the forest, which was often nearly as dark as night even in the bright morning. Sarah had suddenly noticed the birds had fallen abruptly silent, and the quiet that she had grown to like grew far more profound as not an insect buzzed or an animal moved. Gooseflesh prickled her arms as she stood perfectly still. She gripped the stock of the musket a bit tighter as the indescribable but certain feeling of being watched crept over her.

“Who’s there?” she said loudly. “Show yerself, or I’ll give ye a new navel!”

The silence remained.

“Out with ye! Now!” she called again, and she cursed the small break of fear in her voice.

For a single moment, in the very deepest brush, perhaps a hundred feet away, she saw a strange pair of eyes, red as flame, catch the light, but then they were gone. A chill ran down her spine, for there was no doubt in her mind that those eyes belonged to nothing human. Intelligence had glimmered behind them, though, and a calculating mind. It was no animal, either. Sarah’s walks had taken a different path since that day.

On a far different day and on a path quite distant from the darkened one, Sarah saw a strange party heading towards her. Several people, all dressed in deerskin and holding baskets, walked in a group. At the forefront was a child who would impatiently scramble ahead of the others down the path at a run and then call over her shoulder in a strange tongue, obviously urging the others to move faster.

Sarah’s eyes bulged for a moment, but as always, she regained her senses quickly. They did not appear to be armed, she registered almost immediately, and they were carrying what seemed to be some kind of unknown food. Also, what war party was ever led by a rambunctious twelve-year-old?

Cautiously, she stood her ground but left room on the path for them to pass. The child, who had closely cropped hair except for one thin, long queue at the back of her head that reached well past her waist, ran boldly up to her and grabbed her hand, smiling brilliantly.

“English?” she asked quite clearly.

“Ehm, yes,” Sarah responded, not knowing quite what to make of the strange apparition.

“Come with us,” the girl said in a surprisingly friendly manner, handing Sarah a handful of berries. “We are visiting the town.”

If the skies had opened and a rain of apples had started, Sarah couldn’t have been more stunned. The rest of the party, she could only take them to be Indians, smiled sympathetically at her as the girl proceeded to swing her arm playfully as she began to half-run down the path, dragging the newfound Englishwoman with her.

“I am called Sarah,” she finally said, thinking that introductions should probably be made.

The girl nodded her head pleasantly but didn’t give her name in turn. In a few minutes, the palisade was in view, and the child clapped her hands delightedly. To Sarah’s surprise, the two men on guard hallooed the group heartily, and one ran into the town while the other came forth to meet the party.

“Tis young Miss Pocahontas,” he called happily. “We wondered when ye’d pay us a visit again!”

“We waited until the snow was gone,” she replied as she threw her arms around the man in a spontaneous hug. “But now, the berries have come back, and so have I!”

It was then that the guard, Hank by name, noticed Sarah standing there. “Ah, ye’ve met Mistress Sarah Gimble then?”

“Yes,” she responded. “She’s very strange-looking. Her hair is the color of sunlight. I have not seen this before. But like all of the English, she is too pale.”

“Hank,” said the pale woman in question, “might ye tell me what it is I have found?”

“This here is Pocahontas, the daughter of the chief in these parts. We’re on friendly terms with them,” he said, but the way his eyes flitted to the sharpened fenceposts made Sarah wonder. “We trade a mite at times.”

By then the girl had run through the gates and into the town, a string of giggles issuing from her lips. It was strange, Sarah thought, but the child reminded her of herself when she was young, during those few moments when the streets had offered up sport of some kind: a game of tig in the alleys or a wild ride with a few friends in a stolen cart. But it seemed for this one that those moments were the rule, not the exception, and she marveled at it. Oddly, she found herself liking this strange, half-wild Pocahontas with her braid flopping madly as she turned somersaults on the green. There was something about her that was more alive, more real than the rest of them. She had a freedom that back home even children never knew.

The months passed, and the crops were planted and hoed and watered and coddled by people who were mostly the second-eldest or least wanted of families of noble birth, and the result, unsurprisingly, was not perfect. The Indians came time and again, always with gifts of food, and the colonists began to grow increasingly glad to see them. No one spoke of it, but it was plainly obvious that the winter stores would be nowhere near adequate for their number.

When the chill of autumn began to bite in the evening air, Sarah noticed a dropping off among her customers, and this alone told her that things had begun to be perilous. The men wanted to keep their food to themselves. To make things worse, the fevers of the summer had worsened for her, and now a constant pain was in her joints. As much as she didn’t want to admit it to herself, the pain was growing worse daily, and there were nights when she lay awake, as close to the fire as she dared, hoping the heat would seep into her bones and take away the ever-present hurting.

It was on the final visit of the Indians to the colony for the year that Pocahontas rapped tentatively on Sarah’s door. She had taken to her bed that day because, as much as she was loathe to admit it, the pain was simply too bad.

“Come in,” she answered, and the tiredness in her own voice shocked her.

The usually bouncing girl entered, a strange look on her face.

“I missed you today. Why were you not with the rest of the English?” she asked.

“Not feeling very well,” she responded. “You’d best not get too close, child. It could be catching.”

Pocahontas looked at the woman for a long moment, taking in the sweat on her forehead. “You are paler than you were. It is not a good color,” she said slowly. “It is not good at all.”

Sarah decided this really didn’t need a response. The effort was too much anyway.

“I’m here to warn you,” the girl said suddenly. “Something bad is in the woods. Do not walk alone again outside the fence.”

Sarah looked at her, intrigued by something that could frighten someone who never seemed to be afraid of anything, apparently not even a white man’s disease. “Why? What is it?”

“I cannot say,” she said simply, “except that it is evil, like what Craft says in his Sunday talks.”

Sarah smirked slightly. “Craft’s definition of evil and my own are probably far different.”

Pocahontas nodded in agreement. They’d spoken about Governor Craft. The child didn’t care for him either.

“Have you told the others about this?” she asked, frowning.

The girl’s eyes stole towards the door, as though she half-expected someone to be standing there, listening. “No,” she answered. “They would only say I was foolish and had the fears of a child. I will not warn those who will not listen. And I have a sense of dread about you.”

“I don’t think you will need to worry about my taking a stroll anytime soon,” Sarah said with a thin smile.

“No,” the girl replied quietly. “No, I don’t think that you will. I hope to see you in spring. Take this. It is maize. It is good to eat, but keep this basket for yourself, not the others. It is a gift of friendship, Sarah.”

Pocahontas disappeared through the door and into the cold air. Sarah stared at the basket. In all her life, there had never been another time when anyone had given her a gift freely. In the few remaining months of her life, there would be but one more.

As the first flakes of snow drifted to the ground in October, Sarah found herself being taken to the town’s sickhouse. There was one doctor among them, but he had not given thought to the complaints of a woman before this, assuming that she was exaggerating, but when at last he did examine her, there was no mistake about the fading eyesight, the loss of control in her limbs, and the stumbling beats of her heart.

“You have the French disease,” he said shortly with a look of disgust.

She stared at him, her mouth agape. It was a death sentence. The prostitutes of London had feared it for years, but she had never thought she would have it. She had made sure to examine her customers, but the times did not yet understand that the disease could be carried invisibly. Suddenly, everything made sense: the rash that hadn’t wanted to leave, the fevers and tremors and pains, all of it. She had simply not wanted to make the connection.

“How long?” she asked.

“Your remaining weeks are few. I suggest you repent of the evil that brought you to this state and pray God not send you to damnation despite your deserving it,” he said none too kindly.

“And I suggest, good doctor, that you pray you shall not come to the same pass. You have visited me often enough, as your God also knows,” she said coldly.

The doctor’s eyes grew momentarily wide, then he swiftly left the room, leaving Sarah to deal with the revelation that her death was coming much sooner than she had thought. It was a bit like finding out her parentage. Fate had played with her again. The only path that could have saved her life was now going to end it. She would have laughed, but the sound stuck in her throat like ashes.

November passed, and things grew nothing but worse as the leafless branches scratched against the gray sky. Sarah’s mind began to play tricks on her, giving her hallucinations of things that had happened years ago or that had never happened at all. The nurses had a difficult time with her. Her sleep was always restless, filled with murmurings and names and speech of deeds that made their ears go pink. One night, no one knew how she managed it, she was found outside in a drift of snow, desperately looking for a woodpile and screaming that Nellie would flay her if the fire were allowed to go out. It took three strong men to carry her back inside. Other times she rained down curses on Martin and Geoffrey and Alice and Millicent and Frederick and a thousand-thousand others who had used her and tossed her aside when it no longer suited their pleasure. Her ravings grew tiresome, and at last the nurses, convinced there was no hope for her in body or soul, tied her to the bed and left her to her own weird delusions, sometimes for days at a time, often gagged.

Christmas had passed, and the new year loomed ahead, but in her few lucid moments Sarah knew she would never live to see it. It was on the 29th night of the month when she had one of her most vivid dreams. Or so she thought.

She was alone again, and the shutters over the window did little to keep out the wind. The fire was so low in the room that the embers were mostly whitish-gray now, and only a few sparks of light crept forth to shed any light around the room. It hardly mattered, though. Her eyes had long since darkened. Only the strongest sunlight or shadow showed to her now. Sarah was staring at where she knew the ceiling must be, not moving, the sores around her mouth aching like living coals. Each heartbeat had become obvious to her, as though it took an act of conscious will to keep the muscle pumping her life’s blood. It was growing sluggish. She was thirsty, but her arms were bound to the mattress though her mouth at least was free, and there was no one to pour the pitcher of water for her. Her tongue was so dry it was clamped to the roof of her mouth. The pelting of sleet on the roof gradually lessened, and only the low tones of the wind broke the silence of the night.

The pitch of the wind seemed to slowly change, become more rhythmic, and for a moment she fancied it was a voice singing softly outside the window. As the minutes passed, the voice became clearer. It was humming tunelessly in deep, soft, full notes. It came and went in her hearing, or perhaps it was that her ears had begun to fail as well. Words reached her ears, blurred and indistinct, slipping in and out of meaning.

“You shall hear the fond tale  
of the sweet nightingale,  
as she sings in those valleys below;  
so be not afraid  
to walk in the shade,  
nor yet in those valleys below,  
nor yet in those valleys below.”

The music was unknown to her, but the sound of it filled her mind with strange thoughts. Wordlessly, it spoke of safety, an assurance that all would be well and no harm would come to her. A cradlesong.

“I find it odd,” she said forcing her swollen tongue to move to address the empty room, “that my first lullaby is sung over my death bed.”

“Oh, I did not mean to disturb your rest, dear one.”

Her nerves jumped to attention. This was no phantom of the past. This voice belonged to a man, but the tone was different from anything she had ever heard. She searched her brain for what it was like. His accent was different from any she had heard before. There was a slight quiver in it, but not from infirmity or illness. It was as though… as though the night had a voice, she thought, a night like this one, cold and full of wind. There was a strength to it, and a strange, almost dangerous kindness. Not just the words, though they were polite enough in themselves, but it was like the voice was some sort of caress, a hand on her fevered brow. It didn’t make sense to her, but it did.

Behind that voice, though it could have perhaps belonged to an old man, lay tremendous power. Not the power that the nobles and courtiers and rich had or thought they had, but something much different.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Are you afraid of me?” he questioned back.

“I’m about to die,” she said bluntly. “I don’t really see much point in being afraid of anyone now.”

There was a laugh, and it snapped like twigs thrown on a fire, a bit higher than most men’s and resonating through his nose oddly, but it was obvious she had greatly amused him.

“I knew it!” he crowed. “I knew I’d picked one who had spirit to her!”

Sarah’s head was swimming now. The pain on her face and in her joints was almost to the point where she knew she would probably pass out again. The feeling had become familiar by now.

“Who are you?” she repeated, willing herself to stay conscious.

“Oh,” he said, and the o was strangely prolonged as though he were breathing it in instead of out. “I’m a friend.”

“I have no friends,” she said automatically. “And if you’ll excuse my impatience, I don’t really have time to solve mysteries. I’d rather not die curious.”

Again there was a laugh, and a loud slap, one that sounded as though he had actually just hit his knee in amusement.

“My dear, you shan't die tonight. I know these things, child. You have a little strength left in you. You will live another day, but no more,” he said, his voice rising and falling almost as though he was speaking a song. There was no sorrow or pity in it. She rather liked that.

“Tell me your name,” she said curiously.

A chuckle came from outside her window. “Names can be dangerous things to tell. Isn’t that right, Sarah… Isabelle… Venus… Abelard… Abbie… Have I skipped any?”

“Just Abigail, and how did you know all that?” she asked, a chill running over her, and not from the fever.

“You talk in your sleep,” he explained off-handedly, then added in a darker voice, “and I’ve been listening for a long time now.”

Sarah’s mind kept telling her that there was some kind of danger present, something horrifying, but the thought kept swimming just beyond her reach.

“Will I meet you again before the end?” she asked, knowing the darkness of the pain was about to pull her under once again.

“I give you my word, dearest. You will not close your eyes to this world until you have seen me,” he said, and they were the last words she heard before she slipped into unconsciousness.

It was late afternoon before Sarah opened her eyes again. The shutters had been thrown back on the windows, and the light stung at her eyes. It must be a very clear day for winter, she thought. Warmth from the sun fell on her arms, which lay on the bedcover now, unrestrained at last since it was obvious she would no longer be taking random walks into the open. Even though the sunlight was only the weakened rays of winter, it still soaked into her skin. But her eyes were burning from the light, and it was too much.

“Someone close the shutters,” she asked quietly, and a dark figure broke the line of the light. Well then, she thought. Someone is here after all. Of that much she was glad. “Seems wrong that I should die while the sun is still so bright.”

Darkness abruptly fell across the room, and a voice spoke aloud the words she was thinking.

“You’ll not see it again. Before it sets, you will have left this life,” said a man’s voice, and she knew that she’d heard it before, but she couldn’t place where or when. Everything seemed to be whirling around in her head, keeping time to the increasingly hard, sporadic heartbeat that she swore must be audible to everyone else as well as to her.

She was becoming slowly aware of a figure in the room, and that surprised her. It was a dim outline, but still she knew the cut of the clothing well enough.

“I didn’t ask for a priest,” she said in disgust. Why would she? To be told again and yet again, for the millionth time, that she was about to go to hell unless she sniveled for doing what any person with common sense would have done? Why wouldn’t they just let her go there and be done with it!

“You did,” he replied calmly, taking her abusive tone without the slightest rebuke in his voice. “You cried out for me last night in your delirium.”

Sarah was taken aback. Of all the embarrassing things to happen. “I don’t remember,” she said quickly, then paused, thinking that perhaps she could at least have one last laugh before the brimstone and pitchforks began. “Do you even know what I am?”

What, not who. She’d never been a person to anyone, only a thing, she thought. A kitchen maid or thief or prostitute, but never someone, at least not unless it was a lie, except perhaps with Jane or the strange, copper-colored child. A sudden sadness seized her, but she quickly tamped it down in its proper place.

“A woman of some property. No husband. No inheritance. Yes, I know what you are,” he said softly in the customary, quiet tone used for the dying. Tactful, she thought. I’m sick of tact.

“I’m a whore,” she said, stretching the final word slightly, enjoying that she could at least have the simple revenge of shocking one last hypocrite, and this time without fear of any additional punishment than the one she already had. What did anything she say matter now? It was really quite liberating to have the freedom to do whatever she wished. Pity it would only last a few minutes more.

“Well, yes, that too,” said the priest in a completely unperturbed tone. Her eyebrows rose. Not such a delicate one, then. “You should have asked for a priest long ago, child. Your life may have been the better for it.”

A smirk crept to her lips. “And you should have paid me a visit before today, Father. Your life may have been more interesting because of it.”

“Are you prepared now,” he said in that constantly calm voice - she had to admit that much impressed her - “to renounce Satan and beg God his forgiveness?”

Ah, back to the heart of the matter. Back to calling her the dirty one when they were the ones who had covered her in filth to begin with. They had made her what she was now. She remembered Governor Craft’s angry whispers in the night, calling her names that she was surprised a man of his stature had ever heard, and telling her over and over again how she wasn’t even human anymore, she was an animal, and it was heaven’s will that he should be one of her punishers. Usually, on those nights, he used his belt on her until she bled rivers.

“God never did anything for me,” she said coldly. She’d be damned if she turned back to begging now… not that she wouldn’t still be damned if she didn’t.

“Leave us,” he said to whomever else was in the room. “You can't save her life - perhaps I can still save her soul.”

It wasn’t until that moment that she realized the doctor had been bleeding her, using leaches. It was a sickening process, and she had never understood what good it ever did. Her senses had obviously been dulled even more than she thought if she hadn’t felt it. The sound of quiet footsteps and a door closing told Sarah that his wishes had been followed.

“My soul is well past saving. Let the devil take me if he'll have me. Either way - I die," she said. It wasn’t really an argument. This priest, whoever he was, had gained a small particle of her respect. She’d challenged him to rise to her bait, and he hadn’t. She gave credit where it was due.

“No,” he said softly, and there was a note of excitement in his voice. “You will not die. You will be reborn.”

In that moment, the fog began to clear from her memory. He was so familiar. If only she could see him clearly. There was nothing but a whitish blur, and then a glint of red where eyes should be. Red eyes. Red, inhuman eyes hiding in the undergrowth of the trees, cunning beyond an animal’s ability.

“I know you,” she said, her voice strangely unafraid.

“I came to you last night,” he said, and there was tenderness unlike anything she’d heard before, at least not directed towards her. “I sang to you from that window.”

The lullaby… the strange man who wouldn’t tell her his name. She began to understand why.

“I remember now,” she said slowly, answering her own question. “You’re death?”

A long, slow inhale of breath, as though he found her guess sweetly endearing, escaped his lips. “No,” he answered.

Her heart was beating against her ribs, but shallowly, and she knew it was the sputtering before the candle went out in a draft.

“What then?” she asked weakly, hanging on to the final threads.

“I’m your savior,” he said firmly, as though there was no arguing with this fact. “God never did anything for you. But I will.”

Confusion crept over her features, then she felt a mouth against her neck, then pain: pain like a pair of long, hard knitting needles stabbing through her throat. Something was being drawn out of her; she could feel it. Her blood. This man, demon, whatever he was, was drinking her blood. She moaned quietly as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her more tightly against the rough wool that covered his chest, cradling her. She didn’t know what she’d thought death would be like exactly, but not this. It wasn’t like going asleep or turning to ice. It wasn’t like anything at all, except perhaps falling, falling down an endless chasm that had no bottom.

After a short while, she felt the pain in her neck change from piercing to a sense of emptiness. His mouth was gone. She felt him lay her back against the pillow, propping up her head, then a voice urging, insistent.

“Drink,” it said from very far away. “Go on then, child. Drink.”

Something warm and wet was against her lips. She swallowed automatically, and the taste of blood assaulted her tongue, but it was more than that. There was something unbelievably powerful in it, more intoxicating than the best wine. She began to down it hungrily, her little remaining strength drawn to it like a magnet, inexorably, without thought or conscious will, taking it into herself. And that was Sarah’s final memory.

When the Master was well and truly sure that Sarah was dead, he carefully rearranged her dressing gown to cover the marks on her neck, sponged the remaining drops of blood from her lips, and swiftly put his hood back over his head, throwing his face into such deep shadow that it disappeared entirely. The mortal fools would have to touch his new one, of course, but he could hardly tolerate it. Still, there were appearances to keep up. Traditions needed to be followed.

“Nurse,” he called. The woman appeared in the doorway a moment later. “She has gone on to her new life now.”

“Tell me, Father,” she asked, “were you able to save her?”

“Indeed, I did,” he said. “Most assuredly.”

The nurse shook her head as the priest went off across the snow in the growing darkness, the steam of his breath looking a bit like smoke escaping from under his cowl. It was strange, she thought, that one of the priests from the Spanish mission would come all this way for no reason, but as with any who encountered his thrall, she simply didn’t question it further.

Sarah’s burial was a brief affair. The body was taken from the bed, carried in the sheets she had died upon, and thrown into a shallow hole behind the sickhouse within a few minutes. They had been expecting her death, and the grave had stood open for the last few days. Sarah’s form was covered over with frozen earth, and no cross was put at her head. While the town had pretended to turn a blind eye to her prostitution, no one who died of syphilis would be granted full Christian burial. No prayers were said over her unmarked grave, and no mourners wept beside it. All that remained was quiet, and a vague memory of a pretty woman whom the rest of the women had disliked and whom the men had enjoyed but never known. So it remained while the world went around once on its axis, and in that time, Sarah slept deeply.

It was well after sunset on the last day of the year. The good people of the Virginia Colony had gone to bed following their increasingly pitiful suppers. Sarah’s death had not been the only one that week. Many more were weakening, and the graves would continue to multiply in this little outpost on the edge of the unknown. But in the midst of all the decay, there was one who was growing stronger.

It began with a twitching in her feet. Her toes were buzzing in the way they did when her feet had fallen asleep and sensation was just beginning to reawaken. Her ankles were tangled in something tight, restrictive. Bed sheets? Sarah had been having strange dreams for a long time, but this one didn’t seem to be going away. She tried to move her arms and legs to rouse herself, but she was met with resistance. Her limbs were oddly compressed, and something inside her seemed to be missing.

She listened carefully, and strange sounds began to fill her ears, ones that didn’t entirely make sense. Things creeping within the earth and scuttling over it, wind in bare branches, each barren stick clacking loudly against the other, an owl hooting softly far away, the snuffling of a creature in the bushes of the forest, all of them rang perfectly in her ears. But it was then that she realized what was missing: she heard no breathing, even her own. She heard no heartbeat.

For a long, horrible moment, Sarah thought this was her own hell, and such a perfect one. She would remain inside her grave forever, unable to move or to cry out as her body rotted and was eaten away with her still trapped inside it. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound was blocked by the sheet wrapped around her head, and her arms and legs trembled in terror in the cold soil. Her eyes were blind.

Then, she heard it: a soft, brushing sound above her face and growing steadily nearer. At length, she felt a light pressure on the covering of her face, then a loud ripping sound as the wool sheet was torn asunder.

“Good morning, little one,” said the voice of the priest of last night, and her eyes grew wide. “You have nothing to fear. Wake to your new life.”

She had never seen his face properly before, and now she was deeply taken aback. His skin glowed pure white in the moonlight as he set about uncovering the rest of her, an expression of careful concentration marking his features. But what features! His nose was almost entirely gone. Around his mouth were deep grooves, and his head was bald and smooth as an egg. His eyes were what transfixed her most. They were red as the stones of the brooch Abbie had supposedly stolen so many years ago, small and hard, but yet there was an expression of indulgence around the red-stained mouth as he slowly unearthed her body.

“You… you are…” she said, trying to form words.

“Yes, I know. It’s usually a bit of shock when they first see me,” he said understandingly. “I am very old, and the changes that I have wrought within myself have expunged much of the stain of my humanity. Do you find me very ugly?”

Sarah tipped her head to one side, and realized the truth with a start. “No. No, I don’t.”

“There now,” he said with a wide grin, and she saw his teeth, sharp and inhuman, the teeth that must have sucked the blood from her throat. “You are free now, childe. Come, on your feet. Carefully.”

She took his offered hand and rose to her feet unsteadily. She ached all over, and the noises of the night, now that they weren’t muffled by layers of dirt, were so loud they hurt her ears. She leaned heavily against him, and he expertly supported her sagging frame on his arm, allowing her to use him as a walking stick.

“Most new ones are able to free themselves, but you needed help because of how long you had been ill,” he explained as he slowly led her across the open field behind the sickhouse, gradually encouraging her to begin to bear most of her own weight. “It will take a few more hours before you reach your full strength, but then, dear one, you shall never lose it again. The pain will pass away, just as you once did, and all that will be left is power.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, looking at the strange man who held her arm firmly in his own. “I am dead, am I not?”

“Yes… and no,” he said chuckling at some private joke. “Your human self has died, and your soul has flown to who knows where. You are now one of those who walk at night. You are a vampire.”

“A vampire?” she said. “I thought those were tales to frighten children.”

“Ah, but sometimes those stories are very, very true,” he said, smiling so that his sharp teeth showed cold in the moonlight. “It is what I am, and I have chosen to gift you with this as well. You will never sicken or age, and you never need die. Your strength will be greater than that of twenty strong men, and no one shall ever harm you again.”

“But?” she inquired pointedly.

He laughed heartily at her perceptiveness. “Yes, I am sure you learned long ago that all good things come with some bad, and it is true with us as well. Sunlight is your enemy now. If it touches you, it will burn you to dust, as will the stray spark of any fire. Holy water will do much the same, or any holy object. Besides these things, the only ways you can be fatally harmed are with a stake of wood through your heart or if your body and head part ways.”

“None of that sounds terribly difficult to avoid,” she said quietly, “though I believe I will miss sunlight.”

“Bah,” said the demon dismissively. “Moon and stars replace the sun for us, and is it truly so great a price for what you have gained?”

“I suppose not,” Sarah agreed. “Is there aught else I should know?”

“Indeed. You have a great deal to learn, young one, but the most pressing of your lessons is, of course, that now you will live off blood,” he added almost offhandedly, “but that is no bad thing to our kind.”

Sarah tried to study the implications of these words. Her mind told her logically that this was a thing that should horrify her, disgust her, sicken her, but she felt absolutely none of these things. Instead, she found herself experiencing a completely unknown sensation, one that burned in her stomach and emanated into her throat, landing on her tongue, making her lips purse slightly. The only thing she could compare it to was when she had been homeless and passed by a tavern that was roasting capons. The smell of the meat, succulent and mouth-watering, had nearly driven her mad with hunger.

“Do you not find yourself growing thirsty?” asked the demon knowingly.

Sarah found a low growl unfurling in her throat in response, much like an animal’s call. It surprised her, but the man seemed pleased.

“Yes, of course you are. Now, childe, there are rules to this part of the game as well. You cannot enter the house of a human unless you have been invited. It is unfortunate and often bothersome, but there are ways around such things, and you have a ready mind,” he assured her, smiling benevolently. “Are you feeling a bit stronger?

“Yes, some, good sir,” she said, finding she could walk without his aid but oddly wanting to keep her arm laced through his. “If it please you, what may I call you?”

The smile deepened. “Ah, I am called the Master. I am the head of the Order of Aurelius, of which you are now the youngest member. And we must decide upon a name for you as well,” he added, tilting his head thoughtfully.

“But… I have one. In truth I have enough and to spare,” she said, slightly confused once again. “Are all vampires given new names?”

“No, my dear, but you don’t truly have a name at all, do you? ‘Sarah’ doesn’t suit you. I can’t quite seem to decide yet,” he said, furrowing his forehead, which lacked brows to knit. “It will have to do for now, I suppose. All things will be seen to in their own good time. First, a feed. Do you have a preference, young one?”

Sarah knew at once whom she wished, above all others, to seek vengeance upon.

“Our dear Governor,” she said smoothly, and she smiled widely, but as she did so, she felt the planes of her face shift frighteningly. Her hands went automatically to her face in alarm, and she felt bumps and ridges covering her forehead and cheeks, and the teeth in her mouth felt longer, sharper. A moment of terror seized her. “What has happened to me?”

“Oh, don’t fear,” the Master said with a chuckle. “You’ll learn to control your true face soon enough. You will keep your human face, but truly your demon is quite becoming. Our kind will find you charming, though the humans will be terrified. Both are admirable. Now, about this Governor, tell me, what has he done to anger you so?”

“Whipped me. Forced himself on me. Abused me. Treated me worse than an animal,” she said, her voice growing progressively harder.

“And you would like to make him suffer for it?” he said, patting her hand. “Ah, this isn’t the time for it. You are like a child who wants to eat the sweetmeats first! One must work up to that, not start out with it. You must learn the skills for it all first.”

Sarah pouted slightly, but she noticed that the Master was steering them back towards the sickhouse.

“Maybe we should begin with your lovely nurse,” he suggested, pointing with his long-nailed hand towards a figure in the distance. “As good a start as any.”

Sarah suddenly realized her vision was remarkably clear. Her eyes had been failing for months, so even a return to normal clarity would have been pleasant, but her eyes, even in the dim night, were able to see the woman precisely, down even to the frayed hem on her cloak, from a distance of perhaps two hundred yards. Her head swam dizzily for a few seconds as she reeled from the overwhelming increase in her senses. She was also growing aware that sight and sound were not the only differences in her new state. Her sense of smell was beginning to awaken, and the earth still clinging to her held a scent like metal and sand while the odor of the cooking fires that had gone out hours ago was borne to her on the breeze in a delicate scent of ashes. But when the wind blew just right, there was another smell that made its way to her nose, one she was completely unable to describe except to say that it made her stomach burn even hotter and her mouth water. She looked to the Master curiously.

“You smell fear, little one,” he smiled. “Only a trace of it. The woman is frightened by the dark. You’ll find that it will grow stronger soon, and it will become even more luscious.”

Sarah stared at the man beside her, his face lit with a frighteningly vicious light as his red eyes glitteringly followed the nurse. Faint golden flecks dotted his irises, and his teeth elongated even further. He made a horrifying picture, but she found herself not the least bit afraid of him even then. She was not fool enough to ever want to tempt the power she could feel flowing from him, but its vindictiveness wasn’t directed at her, and she suddenly found herself convinced that, unless she were deeply stupid, it never would be.

Her former nursemaid seemed to be walking briskly through the night, her cloak wrapped tightly around her to keep out the biting wind. Judging from her path, she was returning from the privies and making her way back towards her own small cabin.

“How is it done, Master?” she asked, and again she marveled at her complete inability to feel guilt. When she remembered what it had felt like, the place within her seemed to be full of nothing but empty echoes. She could, however, clearly remember this woman tying her to the bed and stuffing wadded cotton in her mouth to silence her, laughing cruelly when she had begun to gag. That was clear as spring water.

“Such a good student,” he said warmly, caressing her hand that still rested on his arm. “Watch me, childe, and I shall show the right way to go about it. Stay close.”

She found herself led swiftly over the dead grass and drifting snow, so swiftly that the distance between them and the human was covered in a moment. Sarah realized that she was watching the Master grab the woman from behind, and his cloak didn’t make the slightest sound in the night air. He struck like some great snake, his arm closing in one swift movement around the woman’s neck, his hand resting over her mouth, as he turned her to face Sarah. The nursemaid’s eyes bulged wide, but her screams were entirely muffled.

“You see, my dear, it’s quite easy. This is the best place,” he said, indicating the woman’s neck with his free hand. “Just there lies a vein that pulses with what you need.”

Sarah’s face shifted once more to its demonic planes, and her teeth grew long once more.

“Very good,” laughed the Master. “Shall I hold her for you?”

“I thank you,” she said, her eyes glittering pure gold in the moonlight. “I simply…?”

“Bite, childe. Listen to your instincts. They will tell you all you need to know,” he guided her confidently.

Sarah leaned close into the other woman, and for a moment she was struck by how intimate the scene was. Her mouth hovered over the pulse point, her eyes locked with the one who had once tormented her, and she delicately lapped her tongue across her skin, a slightly salty taste greeting her. The nurse seemed to panic at last, and began to squirm in the Master’s arms frantically, but his hold kept her still without trouble.

It was exactly as he had said. Her instincts took full hold of her at last, and she plunged her teeth into the woman’s neck, her mouth filling at once with the warmth or coppery, sweet blood. She remembered the taste of the Master’s blood, but this was different. His had been potent, laced with something other-worldly, while this woman’s blood felt more like ale coursing down her throat, warming her and nourishing her, setting her palate ablaze.

“Let it come to you,” the Master said gently, and Sarah was unsure if he was speaking to her or to the woman in his arms. “No need to fight. Let it come.”

Finally, Sarah felt a difference. The warmth was decreasing, the fire in her belly quenched. Her teeth withdrew, and the dead woman hung limply in the Master’s arms for a moment before she was dropped to the ground.

“Very well done, childe! Are you feeling better?” he asked.

Her arms and legs were practically throbbing with new life, and the pains of her illness were completely gone. Strength flowed through her, more strength than she had ever known, and she threw her head back and laughed.

“Much, much better, Master,” she said, smiling broadly. “I have never felt so fine in my life.”

The nights passed swiftly for the new vampire. By day, she and the Master slept in a cave deep in the recesses of the woods, one that was not far from the path she had taken on the walk that had frightened her so much. Oddly, he always insisted upon their resting for the day in separate passages of the cave. In the evenings, they would descend upon the town, usually finding a way to feed from the weaker people and hide their presence. The Master had explained that, while one person killed at night from an animal bite might not arouse suspicion in the wilderness, if it happened too often there would be a commotion that could prove dangerous for them. So the starving were often their targets, and though their blood became progressively more watery over time, it was an ample diet. The wounds at their necks were usually concealed beneath layers of clothing, and the bodies were buried quickly when there was such a high death toll, none bothering to look too closely at what they believed might be their own fate.

Months passed. The cold winter seemed to continue forever, but Sarah found that while she felt the cold, it didn’t actually bother her as it had when she was human. By the time the first tentative signs of spring began to show, the world had changed drastically.

The colonists were much fewer now, and it had not simply been from the two vampires, though a good portion of the cemetery was their doing. Sarah had taken to her new diet with zest, often picking those very men who had been her customers to repay her with their lives. Still, the specter of Governor Craft hung over her, taunting her. The Master had not yet given her permission to kill one that important. His death would inevitably cause a stir regardless of how he died. At times she looked through his window, studying the slow rise and fall of his chest in his sleep, her mouth salivating in response to the tempting show of mortality. She could wait, she told herself.

Eventually, Sarah’s sharpened ears became aware of other sounds in the woods. The Indians were passing back and forth on the trail once more, visiting with the English settlement, and Sarah easily picked out the steps of Pocahontas on the path, springing more lightly than any of the others. For the first time since she had been turned, she experienced a moment of confusion. The child had never harmed her or insulted her. In fact, in life she had actually enjoyed her company. The immediate natural reaction surfaced again of wanting to drain, to kill, but there was something else there, too. While part of her desired the kill, another part, very remote and small, seemed to try to stay her. Granted, Pocahontas was never unaccompanied and came by only in daylight, so the prospect of an attack was almost impossible to begin with and certainly unwise, but the thought of seeing her again intrigued her.

One night, she gave in to the temptation. Following the signs of their trail, Sarah carefully traced their route until she found a village of wood and bark lodges. The silence that reigned over the place was deep, and she could tell sleep had fallen upon the inhabitants. She wandered almost aimlessly from one to another, peering in doors with the wary stealth of a hunting animal, utterly silent as the Master had taught her to be. She had taken to walking barefoot, enjoying the feel of the soil silent beneath her feet and yet walking with such a light touch to the earth that she left prints no mortal could have seen.

Her quarry eluded her this night. She couldn’t find a sign of the child anywhere. As she reached the far end of the village, she suddenly raised her head in surprise. There was someone awake, and they were extremely active.

As she rounded a cluster of birch trees that were just beginning to show signs of budding, she saw the least likely scene she could have imagined. At the opposite end of a long clearing, there was Pocahontas herself, going through a series of undeniably martial movements under the guidance of an older man of her tribe. Her face was knit in concentration, and her limbs moved with an easy grace that was supernatural. For one moment, Sarah thought that the Master had chosen to turn the child as well, and she was surprised at the fact that the thought pleased her. But there were two audible heartbeats in the clearing.

“Fool!” said a voice in her ear as she felt a hand drag her back into the shadows. “What are you doing here?”

Sarah turned to face the Master, who looked utterly livid. His eyes practically threw sparks in his fury, and she found herself frightened for the first time since her death.

“Have I displeased you?” she asked, willing her teeth not to chatter.

He seemed to mentally shake himself, coming to his senses and gaining control over himself. “Of course, you couldn’t have known. That, childe, is one of the things that can destroy you,” he said motioning towards the two silhouetted figures in the moonlight. “You know the child?”

“Yes,” Sarah said, staring at the ongoing training that was continuing. “She was… something like unto a friend, I suppose.”

“She is no friend now,” he said firmly.

“Should I kill her?” she asked, genuinely baffled.

The Master sighed deeply. “No. Stay as far from her sight as you can. You are still only newly-risen, and you are no match for one such as she. She is a Slayer. There is only one human in the world who poses a threat to us, and it is she. Her strength matches our own, and she is cunning. If you wish to live long, avoid them.”

“Them? But you said there is only one,” she questioned.

“Yes, one at a time. But when this one falls, as they all do for they are only mortal, another will rise to take her place. Aggravating, but that is the way of things. Now, come,” he said leading her away from the clearing.

Sarah looked back over her shoulder once to see the young girl continuing to train, an aura of deep concentration around her. She remembered briefly the warning she had been given: “Something bad is in the woods… it is evil… I have a sense of dread about you.”

“They expect a child to save them all from us?” Sarah said, and an emotion something like the shadow of pity fell on her briefly. It was an impossible burden.

“Yes,” the Master said, shaking his head. “Yet, as unlikely as it seems, the plague of humanity still flourishes. But don’t worry about that. It’s nearly day. A good rest and all will be well. And it may be that in a few weeks I shall have a surprise most pleasant for you.”

“The Governor?” she asked giddily. “It’s nearly time?”

“Soon, soon, but not just yet,” he said with a hearty laugh.

The spring turned to summer, and fever ran through the colony as well as hunger, providing yet another cover for their kills. As time passed, Sarah became convinced that the Master was waiting for something. She was quite right.

One early evening, just as she was beginning to stir, she heard an unknown voice conversing with the Master in his section of the cave. It was deep and frankly rather unnerving, but she told herself that if the Master was not disturbed by the intruder, it must be safe.

“Master?” she asked as she rounded the corner into the passage where he had taken residence.

Standing in the chamber was an extremely tall man, the tallest she had ever seen. His head brushed the stone roof easily. He had deep-set eyes, and his demon face was in full evidence. Sarah was forcibly reminded of a living tree trunk.

“Ah, yes, you must meet our newest,” the Master said, practically crowing. “Luke, this is Sarah. At least that is her name for now.”

“Hail chosen of the Master,” he said, bowing deeply, and Sarah barely held back a laugh at the ludicrous formality taking place in a cave in the wilderness. He glanced back at the Master. “She is very fair.”

“Yes, yes she is,” the Master said, nodding approvingly. “Luke has been on an errand of importance for me and was just about to tell me the outcome of his quest.”

“Indeed, your noble intelligence was correct,” Luke said in his thunderous voice. “There is indeed a Hellmouth on the far shores of this continent.”

“You see, Sarah, I sent Luke on a mission to reach the edge of this land. I had foreseen through magic that it would be a long journey but that a place of great power was hidden on the other side. I see now that I was correct.”

“What would you have me do now, Master?” Luke asked.

“For now, we wait. When the next ship comes, Sarah and I will be going back to England. I should like you to pick perhaps three or four of the colonists, turn them, and then lead them back to the Hellmouth. In a few centuries, humanity will have crept that far to the West, building cities and proper places for our kind. I shall see you there in, oh, let us say three centuries? Until then, guard it well and make our numbers increase,” the Master said as though ordering a loaf of bread from the market.

“As it is your will, it shall be done,” Luke said, kneeling quickly. “May I feed?”

“You’ve been feeding for the last thirty years without needing to ask my permission, Luke. Go,” the Master said, rolling his eyes a bit at Sarah over Luke’s head.

“Again, kinswoman, I am glad to know of your existence and hope that at some time in a happy future we may become,” he paused and gave her a look that she had become used to from so many men she had lost count, “better acquainted.”

“Sir,” she said in goodbye as he left, silently thinking that the less she was acquainted with the walking log, the better she would like it.

“What do you think of returning to England, my dear?” asked the Master as soon as Luke had left. “Does the idea sound appealing to you?”

Sarah considered for a long moment before replying. In truth, she’d given it no thought. Still, this place felt so isolated that it sometimes made her dizzy. And she had scores to settle on the other side of the ocean.

“I do believe it does, Master,” she said with a smile.

“That’s well. My court is in London, and there you may meet the rest of your line. They have been waiting for my return a few decades now,” he said his eyes growing distant. “I find that I miss it.”

“Please, Master, may I ask how you came here at all?” Sarah said, wondering if he would answer or speak in riddles as he sometimes did.

“Oh, I had a vision of the Hellmouth in this land, and London was beginning to be a bit too populated with humanity for my taste. A group of Spanish missionaries were heading to this land about forty years ago, and it’s amazing how no one notices an extra robed figure. Things went quite well for me for a time, and I rather enjoyed some solitude. Then a colony began at a place called Roanoke. That is where I found Luke. We had quite the time back then; the entire town, as I recall, simply ‘disappeared.’ Of course, what really happened is that Luke and I took our pick of the strongest and best, turning them, and then ate the rest,” he explained.

“You ate an entire town?” she asked, rather impressed.

“Yes. The ships the next year were completely baffled. There was nothing but the word ‘CROATOAN’ carved in a post. Now, the settlers had said that if they needed to flee the place, they would leave the name of where they were going carved in such a fashion, but with a cross if there was great danger and without if there was not. We did not, of course, carve a cross,” said the Master with a smirk.

“And Croatoan…?” she asked, amused.

“Oh, that was merely the first initials of the ones Luke and I selected to join our kind: Christopher, Richard, Otto, Ambrose, Thomas, Oswald, Anthony, and Nicholas. A bit of a game on their part, and I indulged them,” he said, laughing softly.

“So you’ve been here forty years?” she said. “And Luke has been out scouting for this Hellmouth all that time?”

“No, no, only twenty,” he assured her as though this were a much better number. “It takes even our kind a long while to cross a broad land on foot only by night while looking for a small spot on a faraway shore.”

Sarah began to laugh whole-heartedly, holding her sides in mirth.

“What is it, childe?”

“We’re… we were supposed to look for a passage to the West Indies,” she managed between gales of laughter. “They all think it’s just a few more miles inland before we come to the other side!”

“It is sometimes amazing to believe that the human race has managed to survive this long with such dunderheaded reasoning,” he agreed.

Luke returned as morning was about to break, and Sarah dreaded what she thought was sure to happen, and indeed it did. He looked pointedly at her section of the cave and then asked, quite bluntly, “Would you enjoy laying with me?”

Sarah felt momentarily trapped, but the Master had appeared behind him and given her a reassuring smile over his shoulder along with a look that held a great deal of meaning.

She squared her shoulders, looked Luke directly in the face, and said the one word she had been forever banned from saying as a human.

“No.”

Then she had turned her back and gone to her bed, a feeling of unsurpassed joy swelling through her. In all the years of her life from the time she had gone to Martin’s doorstep, she had never been allowed to have her own desires. It had always been “Yes, good sir,” “Of course, good sir,” “Why I should find that most pleasing, good sir,” “Indeed, good sir, it would give me great pleasure.”

“No,” she whispered quietly to herself, and she thrilled at the power of the word. More than anything else she had experienced, this one simple word had proven to her beyond any doubt that she was truly free.

The very next night, the news came. A ship had docked and would begin its voyage back to England in two weeks. It was nearly time.

The night before the departure, Governor Craft woke with a start. Sarah stood at the foot of his bed, smiling cruelly down on him.

“Nightmare,” he said doubtfully.

“Oh no, Governor,” she said in her best honeyed tones. “You won’t be waking up anywhere except possibly in hell.”

“You are dead,” he said, growing pale.

“Yes,” she agreed, elongating the sound of the s. “And you will be too soon… or perhaps not so soon. And I’d thank your housemaid for letting me in, but she’s already quite dead.”

At this point, Craft attempted to stand up but found his hands and feet tied securely to the bedposts with scraps of cotton.

“How does that feel, Governor?” she asked, suddenly standing close beside him, her face inches above his. “Is it humiliating? This is what you used to do to me before you’d make me bleed, outside and in. How does it feel to lie there, knowing a belt is going to crack your skin wide open and there’s nothing you can do about it? That I can do anything I want to you regardless of pleas for mercy? That I can kill you and there’s no one to stop me?”

“A devil,” he said in a low, trembling voice. “Naught but an apparition. Can’t harm me.”

“Oh, I can, dear Governor Craft,” she said with a sweet smile. “I do believe I can.

The Master looked through the window from outside, then back at Luke.

“This is going to take a while,” he said with shrug as he went back to the cave to finish his preparations for the journey home.

Several hours later, a red glow appeared in the sky over the town. Cries of “Fire!” were heard, and a bucket brigade was employed in a vain effort to quench the flames that engulfed the Craft house. The Master nodded in satisfaction. She had covered her tracks well.

“Tell me, my dear,” he urged as she reappeared in the cave as dawn swept the sky, “did all go as you wish?”

“I killed him,” she said as she sat on the ground, pulling her knees up to her chin. “By the time I left, his bed was a mass of crimson, and I stayed long enough to see the fire lick at his flesh.”

“And how do you feel now, dear childe?”

Sarah twisted her hair for a moment before replying.

“It doesn’t feel like it was enough.”

“It never is, Sarah,” he said, patting her head tenderly. “Still, something is much better than nothing, is it not?

She looked up at him and smiled. “A great deal better than nothing at all, Master. When do we board?”

He sighed and shook his head. “I’m afraid it will be in a few hours.”

“But that’s…” she said, shocked.

“Yes, daylight, I know,” he said, a note of disgust in his voice. “It cannot be helped. I still have the monks’ robes from the Spaniards. If we keep the cowls up and our hands well inside our sleeves, we should have only a minor, unpleasant burning sensation. Do not, though, expose your skin to the sun.”

“But followers of Rome aren’t welcome in England,” she said, her eyes wide. “They may not let us board!”

“Leave that to me,” he soothed her. “Don’t trouble yourself on that account. I have an ability to sway most mortals to my will, and it has never failed me yet.”

Sure enough, Sarah and the Master boarded one of the landing boats the next morning, the smoke from their cowls mostly hidden by the morning fog. The sensation was deeply unpleasant, like sticking her finger into a candle flame and keeping it there. As soon as they were aboard ship, they walked quickly across the deck and then below. Sarah was surprised to find they had a compartment entirely to themselves, one nearly as well appointed as the captain’s cabin itself. There was a large window at one end, and a great, spacious chamber with fine furnishings, including many bookcases filled with ancient-looking tomes.

“I had my baggage brought here in bits,” he said, surveying the books carefully. “Yes, all here. I simply cannot travel without the wisdom of the Old Ones. Would you draw the curtains, childe? Then we can dispense with these smoke-scented robes, at least until the end of our voyage.”

Obediently, she pulled the heavy curtains of the window shut, effectively blocking all the sunlight from the room and allowing the only light in the room to come from a few lit candlesticks.

“Very well,” he said with a smile. “We have many weeks ahead of us, and I’m afraid we shan’t be able to feed from the sailors or passengers except perhaps once or twice. It’s far too risky. I wonder what we can do to pass the time,” he said continuing to peruse the shelves with his back towards her.

Sarah knew a suggestion when she heard one. She’d heard them often enough. True, he had never so much as touched her, but she couldn’t very well expect him to remain patient. He was a male, after all. Granted, he was far from attractive, but that had never entered into the equation with her before. And she certainly owed him for all he had done for her. She had known this day would come. A sad weight clung around her heart, but she did what he obviously wanted, and when he turned around, he found her standing stark naked in the middle of the cabin.

His reaction was not what she expected.

“Agh!” he screamed in a surprisingly high tone, whirling around so his back was to her. “Great hell, childe! That was not at all what I meant! Cover yourself!”

“I-I’m sorry,” she said stammering as she slipped her dress back over her head. “I thought…”

“Yes, yes, yes, I can see how you would assume given your history,” he said with remarkable quickness, obviously flustered. “But, no.”

“I apologize, Master,” she said, desperately embarrassed. “I’m garbed again.”

He turned around a bit jerkily, and then sat down in an armchair nearby.

“I don’t mean to shame you, childe,” he said softly, motioning her to sit before him on the floor. “You simply startled me. You are, as I am sure you know, extremely beautiful, and there are many of our kind who will be dazzled by you, but my interest in you is not for that.”

“It’s… not?” she said a bit disbelievingly. “Then why did you choose me?”

He shook his head as a sad smile came to his face. “You have never had anyone take an interest in you for any reason other than bedding you?”

“Yes,” she answered. “They’ve wanted to kill me as well. At least all of the men fall into one of those two categories, if not both.”

A look of deep sadness went across his face as he reached out a talon-like hand and touched her cheek, finally ending in lifting her chin.

“I chose you because I saw fire in you. You interest me. Very little does that at my age. I have seen many very great beauties, Sarah, some far more beautiful than even you, and I chose none of them. Do you know why?”

She shook her head.

“Because they were idiots without enough intelligence to tie their own shoes or enough stubborn determination to survive for three minutes in the world where you have lived,” he said. “Your beauty is all well and good, Sarah, and I am glad you are lovely to behold for it makes things easier for a woman quite often. But if you were tomorrow to become as ugly as a hag, I wouldn’t care a whit. I chose you because of your spirit, childe. And as for the pleasures of the flesh… let’s just say I forsook those many years ago and leave it at that,” he closed with a small shudder that gave her some unpleasant ideas of what that might mean.

“Then,” she said, completely astounded by what he’d said to her, “how shall we pass the time?”

“Why don’t you read to me, childe?” he said, taking a book from the shelf. “I’ve always rather enjoyed the Codex.”

She took the book from his hands, then bit her lip, embarrassed once again.

“I can’t read, Master,” she confessed.

“Oh, I’m sorry, childe,” he said in a consoling tone. “I should have thought of that. Well, then, we have a way to keep ourselves occupied. I shall teach you.”

She stared at the man, stunned. “You will teach me writing?”

“That and so many other things, dear one. Come, there’s parchment, quill, and ink in that box. Now, we shall begin with the letter A,” he instructed.

Many days at sea were spent with Sarah sitting at a table, the Master standing behind her, carefully guiding her quill to form words until their ship docked in the din and confusion of London once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *A.N.: The Master’s song is part of an old Cornish ballad that traveled to Germany called “The Sweet Nightingale” or “Down in Those Valleys Below.” It dates in English back to at least the 1600s, but the original version may well be older than that.


	7. Virginia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returning to England as a vampire, the tables have turned for the girl who was once Sarah.

1610: London, England

By the time the boat had docked in London, Sarah could read and write better than many noblemen. The Master noted with delight that she took to book learning extremely well. She had already learned several sections of his library by heart, and she was eagerly beginning to devour foreign languages, beginning with Latin. Denied the opportunity in her life to ever study anything besides her own plans for survival, she relished the ability to learn things simply for the joy of learning them.

“But, my dear,” the Master urged her on the final night of their journey, “it is wise to remember that many of these things were produced by the human filth. While they may amuse, they are not the true base of our existence. But you are still very young. My Court will teach you all you need to know to thrive in your new life.”

“And your Court is in London itself, Master?” she asked curiously.

“Not in. Below,” he said, smiling at the memory. “I had some of the lower members of our order carve it out of the earth itself. We found a small natural cave in the process deep underneath London, and we enlarged upon it to meet our needs.”

Sarah was slightly taken aback by this information. While she had willingly lived in a cave in the wilds of the New World, she had never considered that she might very well never sleep above the earth again. It reminded her unpleasantly of her first waking in her shallow grave, surrounded by the suffocating earth. Apparently, she was destined to spend her eternity buried, so to speak.

“Do not fret so,” the Master said as he saw the disappointment in her face. “You will see that you will take pleasure in the Court in time. But I do believe we need to settle one last thing before we end our wanderings. I cannot abide calling you Sarah any longer, childe. The name cloys on my tongue. It feels…” he groped for a word, “well, it simply feels wrong. Tell me, do you have any leanings in the matter?”

She cocked her head for a moment, her eyes half-closed. “I have named myself before, more than once. Somehow it seems wrong to do so again.”

“Just as it seems wrong to call you by the name of a lowly human servant when you are one no longer,” he said, tipping his head and considering, his long, sharp fingernails tapping his chin in concentration. “I believe that until I settle upon a permanent replacement, I shall call you Virginia after the place I found you.”

“Virginia?” she said, barely stifling a laugh. “That is rather ironic.”

He gave her a stern look. “Childe, though you may be schooled well in the ways of human flesh, you are indeed little more than a virgin in the ways of our kind. For now, Virginia will suit you well enough.”

“As you wish, Master,” she said. “The name is strange to me yet, but I will adapt.”

“I am sure you will,” the Master said smoothly. “You always have, Virginia.”

When early morning came, the gangplank was lowered, and two robed passengers moved quickly through the throng of humanity in the gray light of pre-dawn. The unpleasant burning sensation was not as strong as it had been when they embarked, but the sun was much lower in the sky now than it was when they had left the New World. London’s scent hit Virginia almost immediately, far stronger than the smells she remembered from the last time she had set foot on her native land. Of course, as her senses had become far sharper, everything was amplified, and unfortunately the perfume that was London in the 1600s smelled strongly of manure, rot, and filth.

“Keep your sleeve across your face,” the Master said quietly. “It will both hide you and provide a barrier from London’s welcoming air. You will grow used to it in time.”

Virginia nodded and did as he said, by necessity of preserving her disguise remaining mute. Her stomach lurched a bit still, but since breathing was no longer a necessity she was able to control herself. As soon as they were clear of the docks, the Master swiftly led her through London, taking her past stockyards and markets, tenements and pubs, until at last he came to a quiet little row of shops. There was a light bustle in the air as the shopkeepers readied their wares for the early morning crowds, and though the air was still a dim gray color since the sky was overcast, Virginia could sense the oncoming dawn as her blood sang in growing panic.

The Master propelled her to a small alleyway between a baker’s and a draper’s, entirely unimposing and easily overlooked by passersby. The alley dead-ended in a high stone wall, and she was now very confused indeed.

“Have we taken a wrong turning, Master?” she asked tentatively.

“No,” he said, bending and lifting a heavy stone a few paces wide from the rough flooring of the alley. Beneath it appeared an opening into the ground, black as ink and exhaling dampness into the early morning air. “Go on. In with you.”

Virginia blinked, then hesitantly stepped up to the hole and dropped through it as gracefully as she could, landing in a crouch perhaps twenty feet below on rough, wet earth. She stepped out of the way and watched the Master jump nimbly through the opening, replacing the stone as he did so and plunging the passage into total darkness.

The welcome relief of darkness after being separated from the killing sunlight by only the thick wool robes was akin to soaking her toes in a cool stream on a hot day, but the inability to see was extremely disorienting. She could sense the Master close beside her, and that saved her from a moment of pure panic. It shocked her to realize she had come to depend upon him, that she trusted him. She had never trusted a living soul, not completely, and it occurred to her in a flash of humor that she still hadn’t.

The tunnel floor went smoothly downwards, and after a quarter of a mile or so the dirt floor was replaced by stone. Eventually, they came to a sharp right turn, the first one they had encountered, and Virginia was stunned to realize that this new section was lit with torches placed in brackets at regular intervals. They smoked quite badly, and the air was full of an oily scent, but the light was most welcome. The Master, however, looked a bit troubled for a moment and paused as though waiting for something that did not come. He shrugged amiably enough, though, and patted Virginia’s shoulder.

“It shant be long now, childe,” the Master said, and she turned to see him looking about him with an air of nostalgia. “We shall be home in a few minutes’ time, and we can rest at last.”

Virginia took a breath out of habit, steadying herself, suddenly nervous afresh about what that “home” would be like. She also realized she had a twinge of fear that the Master, who would now be surrounded by dozens, if not hundreds, of their kind, might find her far less important than when they were the only two vampires to be found in several thousand miles. It frightened her to realize that he held that kind of power over her, the power to make her jealous. It had been one of the chief tools of her trade, and she knew the incredible sway it could hold over its captors, but she had never before been on this side of the mastery. A slave herself to everything and everyone else, the one thing that had always been her slave was jealousy and those under its thrall.

She was pondering the import of her discovery when her concentration was shattered. From above them, someone had dropped hard to the floor before the Master, growling savagely. Virginia saw from the face that it was another vampire, fangs descended and face a map of bulging deformities, a male dressed in ragged blue jerkin and hose, and he seemed very large.

And suddenly he found himself thrust against a wall, a hand clawing at his throat, a stunned expression on his face.

Clapping filled the corridor, and Virginia turned to look at the Master, who appeared absolutely delighted, though she kept a strong hold on the strange vampire’s throat. She wasn’t sure who was more surprised, herself or the one squirming in her grip.

“Excellent!” the Master cried, shaking his head in satisfaction. “Virginia, my dear, your instincts are superb! Most wonderful!”

“I thank you,” she said, drawing her attention back to the vampire when she felt blood wetting her fingers. “What would you have me do with this one?”

“Tell me,” the Master said, suddenly very close to the stranger’s face, “who are you and what are you doing here?”

“My name is Gunther,” the man said in a strong accent, his voice shaking, “childe of Johannes. I am guarding the southernmost entrance to the Court.”

“Johannes, yes, I do remember him. Tell me, do you know who I am, Gunther?” the red-eyed demon asked almost idly.

“You... you are the Master,” he said rather timidly.

“I am your death,” he said in a suddenly fiercer tone, and in a movement too swift for Virginia to follow, he had removed a wooden stake from the folds of his robes and plunged it into Gunther’s chest. The body dissolved beneath her fingertips, for a moment showing the skeleton beneath, a look of terror etched on the features of the skull, and as the dust fell to the earth, there was a muffled rushing sound as though the lid had been taken off a tightly sealed, ancient vessel.

Virginia must have looked horrified, for the Master gently reached out to touch her shoulder, and she fought not to recoil from him. They had killed humans, of course, but one of their own kind was another matter entirely somehow.

“You must understand, Virginia,” he said, speaking in a kind voice completely at odds with his previous actions, “this vampire, though one of our kin, had committed two crimes. Do you know what they were?”

“He attacked you?” Virginia asked.

“That I could have forgiven if he did not know who I was,” the Master said solemnly as he continued down the corridor, leading Virginia with a touch to her elbow, “but he did know. I am not difficult to recognize, wouldn’t you say, my childe? Mine is hardly a common face.”

“Yes, Master,” she said. “So he attacked because of who you are?”

“Perhaps to test his mettle or to see if the stories were true,” he said. “And, in truth, since he was not yet made when I left, I could perhaps even forgive his curiosity under the right circumstances. But his second crime was very serious as well. Do you know it?”

“Nay,” she said.

“He was to be guarding this corridor for the previous quarter of a mile, and we arrived utterly unchallenged. He had not been paying attention to his post, and for that reason put all those within in peril. I will not permit laziness or stupidity to threaten my little ones, even if it means killing one of our kind,” he said, gently blowing dust from his fingertips. “Though it is a pity. Johannes shall be highly upset, I should imagine.”

Virginia turned around once to stare at the small pile of dust on the floor. That was what she could become if she were not careful, she told herself. The Master seemed to read her thoughts, and chuckled softly.

“I would not worry so,” the Master said. “You impressed me greatly with that display. Quick thoughts, agile movements, and a vicious determination to win. All charming characteristics, and I was quite moved that you specifically protected me as well as yourself. I am glad we have had all this time to become acquainted with one another. You were an excellent choice of mine.”

Virginia found herself smiling in spite of the lingering nausea from the shock of seeing her first dusting.

“Will we be challenged again, Master?” she asked.

“I should think in about thirty paces or so, yes,” the Master said. “This time, do leave him or her to me, though.”

In less than a minute, a second vampire, this one a female wearing what must have once been a white dress, came from the ceiling once more. This one, however, showed no signs of aggression, but instead landed in a crouching bow, her forehead brushing the floor.

“Hail, Master!” she said loudly. “Your coming home is most welcome!”

“Simonetta,” he said with a hearty laugh, putting a hand under her chin and guiding her to stand, “it has been a great long time, but I am glad my eyes behold you again.”

Simonetta, who turned out to be surprisingly tall, smiled. Virginia took a quick stock of the other vampire’s features. Her mouth was a bit wider than was commonly thought beautiful, and her nose matched its width. Her hair, which reached the middle of her back, was a very ordinary shade of brown and rather bushy, and she seemed incredibly dirty into the bargain. She was thin, though, and she had a grace Virginia was beginning to associate with vampires in general.

“Ah, yes, Simonetta,” the Master said, “I should like you to meet Virginia. She became part of our family in the New World, one of the first to swell our ranks on that shore.”

“Good day to you, Virginia, childe of the Master,” Simonetta said in a manner that seemed a trifle too formal.

“And to you, Simonetta…” she broke off, fairly sure she was supposed to supply the name of the vampire’s sire but being clueless as to what that was.

“She is the childe of Bertram,” the Master said, patting Simonetta’s cheek fondly. “He brought her back from Italy with him nigh on two hundred years ago. Your English is almost without any trace of an accent now. Excellent work.”

Simonetta grinned readily, and Virginia looked at her with some astonishment. She had known that vampires did not age as humans do, but this woman looked to be perhaps five and twenty at most when in reality she was eight times that. It struck Virginia suddenly just how young she was in this Court.

“Come, come, we’re on to the main chamber. Walk with us, girl,” the Master said, tucking an arm around Simonetta’s shoulders on one side and Virginia’s on the other. “Now, do tell me, what has passed since I was away?”

Virginia saw a frown mar Simonetta’s expression, and there was a brief pause. She knew perfectly well that none of this was a good sign.

“I am sorry to say it, Master, but we have had some losses,” she said. “My own sire was killed not ten years ago, as well as Miranda and Gregory and some dozen other new ones.”

“What?” the Master said, his jaw dropping open in anger. “How is this possible?”

“Slayer,” Simonetta said, the word spat out like a filthy curse. “There was one called in London. She gave us a good deal of trouble for six months or so.”

“When the cat is away, the mice do play,” the Master said, shaking his head. “I am only sorry I was not here to kill her myself. Who had the privilege?”

“Indeed,” Simonetta said, “twas Albert, but he died giving her a mortal wound.”

“I left Albert, who was my right hand, in charge of my little ones when I left,” the Master said to Virginia. “He did well, though obviously not too well if he lost some, including himself.”

“Aye, gratitude and blame in equal measures,” Simonetta said.

“Who ascended after Albert’s demise?”

“Deidre,” Simonetta replied. “She has ruled well these last few years.”

“Tis well. Now, has aught else happened?” the Master asked.

“A few new fledges have been made,” Simonetta said. “They will be presented to you, of course, as soon as you are ready after your long trip. The inner chambers have been added to, and we have kept to the schedule of sacrifices and chants that you prescribed ere you left. All has been done as you wished.”

“Very good. Simonetta, why not run along ahead to let the others know of our arrival? I’m a bit weary with guards dropping from the sky like ripe apples. Convene the others in the main chamber, and let them know I shall meet them there.”

“With pleasure, Master,” she said, curtsied, and ran with a burst of preternatural speed ahead of them down the corridor.

Virginia watched as the retreating back of Simonetta disappeared into the distance, the spoiled white of her dress sometimes flashing briefly into visibility under the faint light of distant torches. The silence, as well as the knowledge that no one would be interrupting them again, made her all the more aware that she was walking into the unknown. Her tensions increased with each step she took at the Master’s side. She disliked the feeling. It made her recall with entirely too much clarity that she had once been helpless, her fate held by the whim of others. Never since her last breath had she ever felt that oppressive sense of not having complete control.

“Speak, childe,” the Master said, abruptly breaking the silence.

Virginia looked at him sideways as they continued to walk. His gaze was directed at her, piercingly so.

“I can feel the tension pouring off of you in waves greater than the ones that knocked against our ship on the way here,” he said, his unblinking eyes riveted to her face. “If you are concerned, then say so. I may be able to lay your fears to rest.”

“Not fears, precisely,” she said.

“Good,” the Master said. “You never have any reason to fear as long as I am with you, little one. Provided, of course, you do not provoke me. But there is little chance of that, I think.”

“The Court… I do not know what will be expected of me, what it will be like,” Virginia admitted. “It makes me…”

“Wary?” he finished. “That is good as well. It means you have caution.”

“But there are rules, are there not?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said casually. “You will be taught them by one I will choose for you.”

“And the others of our kind? What is life like among them?”

The Master stopped their progression, turning her to face him fully. “In every place you were in life, what was life like?”

“A battle,” she said promptly. “A struggle, the strongest and cleverest lording it over those beneath them in stature. A series of back-stabbings and back-handings.”

“And you were on the receiving end of much of that.”

“Not always,” she said. “I learned the rules of that game and could play it well enough to live, and quite well.”

“You will learn the rules of the game here, as well, and swiftly,” the Master said. “You will do well, my Virginia. Dive into the blackest water, and you shall find you rise with greater strength than you dream possible.”

He turned and began to walk towards their destination with longer strides, and after a moment of collecting herself, Virginia followed after him, her shorter legs matching his steps in determination, her face set. Whatever the hell was at the end of this hall, it was damn well going to learn her name.

She could hear it before seeing anything. There was a soft murmuring of voices, chanting she thought, though she couldn’t make out the words. A patch of light ahead seemed to be framed in a rough doorway perhaps five paces wide, and growing rapidly closer with each step. The words of the chant were clear now, but completely unintelligible to her. It was not English, nor did it appear to be Latin.

“Ah, a welcome sound!” the Master called loudly enough to be overheard in the chamber beyond the door.

The chanting continued, and the Master strode slightly ahead of Virginia, reaching the door first, his form silhouetted against the reddish, flickering light within. Silence filled the air immediately, and then, with one accord, a great number of voices were raised in a cry of “Hail Master and hide stars, death is home once more!”

Virginia saw the Master nod his head in greeting in return, then he turned back to her and extended his white, cold hand to her. She grasped it, and prepared herself for whatever might be about to come. He ushered her carefully through the doorway and spoke.

“Members of the Order of Aurelius, I present to you my newest childe, Virginia, brought into our darkened life on the shores of the New World.”

There was only a moment’s pause before they responded with “Welcome, Virginia, childe of the Master,” but it was enough to tell her that Simonetta had informed them of the Master’s arrival, but not her own. Virginia gazed with great determination around the room, drinking in every detail as quickly as her new senses permitted. A short flight of steps went down before her feet, and the chamber itself was a circle lit by several braziers standing along the walls and a black metal chandelier filled with blazing tapers. It was perhaps twice as large as their boat had been, and to her quick-seeing eyes, nearly three hundred vampires stood easily within the room. Their faces were fixed in their demon visages, and taking her cue, she immediately allowed the change to come over her features.

As always, her vision became even more acute, and she could pick out the smallest details of the other vampires. There were male and female, and though it was difficult to say for certain with their faces in this form, she would guess most were turned between the ages of seventeen and forty. Like Simonetta’s, their clothing was generally ragged and dirty. Their faces wore widely ranging expressions, some of curiosity or even approval, others of worry or confusion. She sniffed the air tentatively, and was greeted by an intensified odor of underground damp, as well as a musty scent that permeated the room and which she thought might be the result of the decaying clothing. But there was something else, something strange ringing in her ears.

“Master,” she said softly, “I hear heartbeats, five of them.”

“Indeed,” he said approvingly. “You are correct. My Court, bring forth your tempting gift. I have had nothing but rats for long weeks.”

Immediately, five humans, bound and gagged, were dragged forth by a contingent of vampires, and the first one, a girl of about twenty with reddish hair and almost unbelievably smooth, creamy skin, was presented to the Master. He put a finger under her chin, examining her closely.

“Very pretty,” he said, then moved with lightning speed to her bared throat and bit viciously, draining her in great gulps of hunger.

The same fate awaited the next three: a handsome man in fashionable clothing, another girl of around the same age as the first but with dark hair, and then a boy in his late teens with wide, clear brown eyes. It was obvious each of them had been chosen for exceptional beauty.

The last one was brought forward, another man, this one broad and tall, and pressed upon the Master, but he shook his head.

“Is there something wrong?” asked one of the two vampires holding the human, concern and fear written on his features.

“No, nothing whatsoever,” the Master said, “but I should like Virginia to take this one.”

The victim’s eyes bulged for a moment at the tiny figure in front of him, then she distinctly saw him glare at her in a calculating manner that clearly stated he knew he would win against her in a fight. Virginia tilted her head in what was obviously a coquettish gesture, and while the man didn’t seem to find her face particularly appealing in its current demonic state, his eyes seemed to be gazing a few hands’ breath lower than her face at any rate, and there he didn’t seem displeased at all. Men: they were so predictable.

“Virginia? What is it?”

“I should like them to release him,” she said in a honeyed voice.

“You heard her,” the Master said to the two vampires. “Remove your hands from him.”

The vampires looked at one another, then did as they had been ordered. Immediately, the man sprang free, intent on making his escape, but Virginia pounced on him like a cat as he tried to bolt up the steps, bringing him crashing to the ground beneath her. Shock was etched on his face. He attempted rolling her over, but her much smaller arms and legs bound his struggling body to the floor. She lifted a hand to his cheek, almost gently, and stroked a finger over his gag before slashing her nails into his cheek and drawing blood. She put one dripping finger to her mouth and suckled it sensually, meeting his eyes.

“Oh, you are a sweet one,” she almost purred, then lowered her mouth to his neck, her fangs cleaving through his skin, and began to drink from him slowly, deliberately. She rubbed her body eagerly against his prone one, demanding everything in him. The man groaned into his gag, but she wasn’t quite sure whether it was fear, pain, pleasure, or a mixture of all three. His life ebbed from him as slowly as a setting sun, and when Virginia lifted her mouth from his corpse, only the slightest of red stains could be seen clinging to her lips.

A quick glance at the crowd of fellow vampires proved that she had made her point. She was no weakling, and roughly half of those assembled looked as though they wanted her to give them exactly the same treatment she had given the human. That was mostly the male half, though a few of the females had similar expressions.

“I thank you for the gift, Master,” she said demurely as she rose smoothly back to her feet.

The Master hid a smile at his over-achieving progeny’s actions, then addressed the vampires who had brought the victims into the chamber. “Remove the carcasses to the Chasm before they begin to reek. Now, come before me, each of you, one by one, that I might see your faces again. Those who have sired in my absence, bring your new ones with you.”

The Court immediately sprang to an order that seemed perfectly organized beforehand, and a woman vampire with light brown hair and dark eyes came forward first. Virginia noticed that she walked with a slight limp.

“Master,” she said in a rolling accent, and curtsied low.

“Deidre,” he said, and she rose. “I understand that you undertook rule after Albert perished at the hands of a Slayer?”

“Aye. It has been nigh on ten years since then. I am right glad that ye’ve returned, Master. Tis no light task this,” she said, and Virginia was able to place her accent as Irish. Very few Irish came to London, and those who did were highly unwelcome. Virginia was startled to see that the woman was no half-mad savage as in the tales she’d heard, and something in the way Deidre stood told her that she was strong enough to lead the Order in the Master’s absence and then some.

“You have done well,” the Master said, breaking Virginia’s train of thought, “and therefore, I will entrust you with a new task. You shall be Virginia’s guide to our ways.”

“I shall see to it right certain,” she said, looking at Virginia appraisingly. With a bow, she disappeared and the next vampire came, and the next after that. A bevy of names came at Virginia, one after another. A variety of nationalities were represented, even to a vampire who was from India, his darker skin still rich enough in color to blend among mortals without a second thought. The Master made a point of carefully examining each new addition to the line since his departure. There were ten new vampires, though all of them had been turned before Virginia. An embarrassed pause occurred when Johannes stepped forward.

“Ah, yes,” the Master said. “Gunther’s sire.”

“You have already met him, Master? I was about to make apologies for his absence,” Johannes said, a momentary relief going over his broad features.

“Met him, and killed him,” the Master said, a hint of a growl in his speech. “His guard-duty was sloppy and he attempted assassination on me.”

Johannes’s eyes increased in size so much that Virginia momentarily thought they might come straight out of their sockets. A thin sheen of perspiration was on his brow, and as Virginia had never had that happen to her even once since her turning, she knew he must be extremely frightened.

“I...”

The Master raised a hand to cut him off. “Gunther’s actions were his own, and he has paid the price for them,” he said. Johannes’s expression relaxed for a moment. “And you are also responsible for your actions, which included turning a boy and then not instructing him properly in his duties to this Order and to myself,” the Master finished in a deadly voice. “I am displeased. What do you intend to do about that, Johannes?”

The vampire looked around wildly, and Virginia knew that the next few moments were going to decide if this one lived or turned to dust as well. With a sudden burst of speed, Johannes ran to a large ax hanging on the wall, yanked it free, and then knelt before the Master once more and raised the ax in his left hand.

It happened so quickly that Virginia didn’t have time to be sick. One moment the ax was raised. The next, Johannes’s right arm lay on the floor in a pool of blood, and a loud shriek pierced the air. The Master regarded the self-mutilated vampire coolly, not even blinking.

“That will do to be going on with,” he said. “Perhaps I will permit you to replace it with one of iron… in a few decades.”

Johannes nodded, biting his lip forcefully, but managed a bow before quickly exiting.

“Night falls soon,” the Master said loudly. “You have my leave to go and hunt, and good will to you all.”

They bowed and curtsied as one, then left the Master and Virginia standing in the room alone with Deidre.

“Show Virginia to her new chamber,” the Master said. “I’m weary from travel and wish to sleep. See that I am not disturbed unless hell itself comes to the door.”

“Indeed, Master, and if that be the case, I’ll throw the door wide and invite Old Scratch in for a game of cards,” Deidre said with a smile.

The Master laughed loudly, then patted Virginia’s shoulder, and with a whispered, “Well done, my dear,” he left.

Deidre and Virginia surveyed each other in his wake. The moment was uncomfortable, and both women were carefully weighing one another, trying to decide exactly how to approach the situation the Master had chosen for them.

“Virginia, is it then?” Deidre finally said, breaking the silence.

Virginia nodded. “This time around.”

Deidre raised an eyebrow at her, and in doing so, her face lost its demonic features and smoothed, revealing a human mask that looked roughly the same age as Virginia’s, but, almost ironically, there was a fine smattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose. Deidre noticed Virginia’s gaze, then smiled a bit.

“I assure ye, they aren’t from stayin’ too long in the sun, despite what me mam told me,” Deidre said dryly.

Virginia let her face recede in response, a considering expression on her features. She hadn’t spent any time with another female vampire, and for a woman who had trusted no men and few women, it would be far more comfortable to be taught the intricacies of her new life by another woman than one of the men. She suspected the Master had known that as well.

“Deidre,” she said, “I believe I have several thousand questions to ask you.”

“And I’ll answer the first afore it leaves yer lips,” Deidre said. “Yer chamber’ll be this way.”

She led Virginia back across the room, towards a small doorway that was next to the stairs leading down into the chamber itself. As Virginia followed, she heard a faint scrabbling behind her, and whirled around to see several other vampires had appeared from she knew not where and were scrubbing the entrance hall clean after the many footprints the gathering had left.

“They’d be minions,” Deidre said, not even bothering to turn. “Pay them no heed unless you be needin’ something.”

Virginia turned back in time to see Deidre take a torch from a bracket on the wall and go left down a side hallway. After several more twists and turns, Virginia found herself outside a wooden door set into an alcove in the wall. Deidre pulled on the heavy iron handle and the door opened to reveal Virginia’s new home.

It wasn’t much to look at. It was a large square room, perhaps thirty paces wide, with a smooth gray stone floor and walls of the same color and texture. The ceiling, however, was coffered wood, painted black with small flowers of red, green, and blue worked into the carving. The workmanship wasn’t of the highest quality, but it was still something to relieve the starkness of the architecture. A bed stood against one wall, plain and unadorned, and as yet without bedclothes. A small wooden chest of drawers was placed on the wall to the left of the bed. Two large wrought iron candelabra, each holding nine unlit candles, flanked the entrance. Aside from these things, the room was barren.

“Home,” Deidre said, touching a taper to the torch and then using it to light the rest of the candles. Once finished, she returned the torch to a bracket in the outside hallway. “I’ll see about getting ya a blanket and such afore…”

Deidre stopped mid-sentence as she realized that in the few seconds since she’d left the room, Virginia had thrown herself on the bed and fallen soundly asleep.

“Or perhaps I won’t at that,” Deidre finished to no one, closing the door on her way out.

Virginia slept soundly for almost two days. When she finally did open her eyes again, she stared at the ceiling, completely unable to understand where she was for a few moments and wondering why the ship wasn’t rocking to and fro. When at last the pieces fell into place, she stretched luxuriously then got out of bed. The floor was cold to her feet. She would need to see about securing a rug. Sitting on her dresser was a new set of clothes: a simple dress of brown wool. She ripped off the clothes she had worn for so many months, the same ones she had been buried in she realized with a start, and slipped over her head the fresh fabric, enjoying the feel of something clean. It wasn’t entirely to her taste, but that could be remedied easily enough.

She had just finished dressing when a knock sounded and Deidre opened the door. She eyed the dress critically.

“It fits well enough, in any case,” she said.

“It does,” Virginia said. “It’s rather bland, though.”

“We’ve little call for lace and ruffles here,” Deidre said with a grunting laugh. Virginia frowned.

“Surely such things aren’t forbidden?”

“Forbidden? Nah, not exactly so, though the Master encourages us to in no way stand out from the mortals when we hunt lest we draw too much attention.”

Virginia could see the sense in this, but a furrow still creased her brow. “Is my education to begin today then?”

“Aye, but after ye break yer fast,” she responded, then turned to the hall. “Bring in the boy!”

Two vampires, minions she supposed, brought in a human who was bound and gagged as those at the Master’s welcoming had been. Virginia fed quickly, and the minions dragged the body out of the room at once, shutting the door quietly behind them.

“Excellent service,” she commented dryly.

“Tis what they exist for,” Deidre said. “Vampires fall into two kinds: the minions and the elite.”

“Are they made so?” Virginia asked.

“Some are made so that they’ll take up their place amongst the high ones, but it’s possible for some of the minions to move up a bit, though it’s most rare. They can do so through performing extraordinary services and the like for the Master. But it’s never happened in my existence.”

“Might I ask how old you are?”

“I was turned some two-hundred odd years ago. I forget what year it is now.”

“Sixteen-hundred and ten.”

“Ah, then t’will be,” she calculated a moment on her fingers, “207. And you?”

“A little over a year,” she said, self-conscious of her youth.

“Time mends that fault soon enough,” Deidre said. “Besides, yer rank here’s already assured.”

“It is?”

“Fer pity’s sake, woman! Yer the Master’s own blood, hand-chosen by himself! There are precious few who can claim that anymore. Just yerself, Marcello, who’d be in Hungary or thereabouts now, Petrova, who’s abroad in Prussia, and Luke, who’s still off in the New World. Ye outrank the lot of us here and then some.”

Virginia blinked. She had assumed the Master had turned most of those who had been in the hall the previous night.

“But… there are so many of you,” she said.

“What ya saw last night twasn’t half our number,” Deidre said, beginning to lead her back through the hallways along the same path as last night. “Those of the Master’s blood, and many of them are dust now, made a great many vampires, and those have made others, and on down the line.”

“So it’s expected that I make more of our kind?” she asked.

“Nay, not expected, but there are rules about it,” Deidre explained, stopping to speak to Virginia face to face. “For the first century of a vampire’s new life, he or she may not turn a human unless they have their sire’s permission to do so. After a century, they may do as they please, though if the childe is found wanting by the Master, he of course has the right to destroy it forthwith without a complaint or feeling of ill-use.”

Virginia nodded her understanding. “And the difference betwixt minions and the elite? Does it happen at siring?”

“Minions are fed blood farther from the heart during the change,” Deidre explained. “Wrist, leg, foot-- all of these places will make a minion. Remember where the Master gave ya his blood from?”

She strained her memory, but her thoughts in those last living moments were like the shattered images of a dream, swimming and spinning.

“No,” she finally said. “I cannot recall.”

“Tis common,” Deidre said. “But the Master most likely fed you from his throat or breast. As I said, tis possible for a minion to become one like us, but it happens rarely. Most minions are a bit dim in the head to begin with, but they serve their purpose, like all others.”

“But what difference does where the blood comes from make? Our hearts don’t beat,” Virginia said.

“Nay, not now, but they once did. Life’s a powerful thing, and the heart was its seat when ya were mortal. Ye’re mortal no longer, but that force is still there, as though yer heart were forever caught between beats. It’s sleeping, aye, but not dead. Many things from life stay with us in unlife, whether we will it or no.”

“Deidre,” she said suddenly, “should we not have turned left to reach the main chamber at the last fork?”

“Aye, we should have,” Deidre said, “if that was our destination, which it isna. Ye’ve a good sense of direction.”

“Then where are we going?”

“The Chasm,” she replied. “Much happens there.”

“The Chasm?” she repeated.

“Ye’ll see.”

The way continued to slope downwards, and Virginia knew that they must be far, far below the ground now. The chill of the upper chambers left, and heat began to take its place. She wondered for a moment whether Deidre was leading her into hell itself and if the next person they encountered on the path would have cloven feet and a pitchfork, then laughed at herself.

Until she turned the next corner and the hallway ended abruptly in hell.

There were no devils running about, but the passage dumped them without ceremony into a measurelessly wide chamber with a vaulted cave-ceiling full of mammoth stalactites. This was not what held her eyes, though.

Deidre and Virginia stood on a small ledge perhaps ten paces wide that went about a mile along one wall. Before it lay a vast chasm so wide that the other side of the chamber was only dimly to be seen on the opposite side. Most startling of all, the cavern was not dark, nor was it lit by torches as all the other rooms were. A burning red light that could only be described as infernal glowed throughout it, painting the living stone walls the color of blood and mayhem, and this light seemed to be emanating from the chasm itself. A dull roar, not unlike that of a massive waterfall, filled the air. Virginia stared at the place, then back at Deidre.

“Rather overwhelmin’, aye?” Deidre said, carefully putting her torch into one of a line of brackets near the doorway. “That’d be the chasm. Ye can take a couple steps nigher the edge, but I’d not advise going closer. The rock may crumble away beneath ya if ya do. That’s how Martha perished twenty years ago.”

Virginia was about to take a few steps when it suddenly occurred to her what a perfect scene this would be for a murder, namely her own. All Deidre would need to do is give her a swift push and she’d be rid of the Master’s newest childe. After all, Deidre had led the group until recently, and she had said herself that Virginia outranked her. Perhaps it would make her the Master’s favorite once again.

“I don’t believe I will,” she said, keeping her distance from the edge.

Deidre nodded. “No fool, are ya? I canna very well kill ya, though, Virginia. First, the Master would know twas me who’d done it, and I’d be prayin’ fer an easy death and not gettin' it. That’s another law, Virginia. We don’t kill our own save if our skins depend on it or if the other has committed treachery. A sire may kill his or her childer if they offend ‘em, but tis generally frowned upon and seen as a sign that they canna control their own young. Weakness, so tis.”

“I see,” Virginia said, and decided to risk at least a quick look, though if Deidre came a step nearer, she’d throw her into the pit herself.

Carefully, she stepped closer to the edge and looked down. Far below her, so far that it seemed impossible, a lake of liquid fire blazed upward, shots of flame and smoke and a powerful smell of brimstone nearly knocking her off her senses. The roaring she had heard was the sound of an underground river of lava, though she did not know that was what it was called. The sight was horrifying, but she couldn’t tear herself away from it. It took her a long while to find her voice.

“What is this place?” she asked, looking back at Deidre.

“As I said, tis the Chasm,” she said. “Tis here that the Master bids us to worship the old ones through sacrifices and chants.”

“The old ones?”

“The ones who came afore us, long afore, afore the plague of humanity crept out o’ the seas. So the Master has said. The old ones give a bit of their spirit to us, cleansing us of the dirt of humans and burning us pure, like unto themselves. We give thanks for it here,” she said matter-of-factly.

“How?”

“At the full of the moon and again at the new, and at various and sundry feasts, we throw thirteen humans into the pit,” she said. “There’s words to go with it, and the Master says they’re right important and all. Tisn’t in English or any other language we know. He says tis from a time long past, one unsullied by the human tongue for many a year, and that’s cleaned it.”

Virginia took a moment to consider this.

“I’ve never exactly been religious,” she said finally.

Deidre laughed loudly. “Odd way of puttin’ it, dearie! It’s simple enough to do, and really what’s the harm in killin’ a few humans?”

“It’s not that,” she said quickly. “It’s… do you really believe something lives at the bottom of this place?”

Deidre tipped her head in consideration. “I’ve seen many strange things in my days. I’d not say nay to that so fast as others might who’ve seen less. On the other hand, I’ll not say aye, neither.”

Virginia raised an eyebrow. “Fair enough. If twill please the Master, I’ll do so. Tis a small enough thing.”

“Ya like him, eh?” she said, smirking. “To each their own, I suppose.”

“Not in that way,” she said with a matching smirk. “With my life, I’ve had my fill and more of men for a long time to come.”

“That’s another rule ya’d best know of,” Deidre said, taking the torch out of the bracket again. “Tis generally considered impolite to ask vampires about their mortal lives. If they wish to tell ya of their own volition, tis fine, and fine for ya to do the same, but as yer not what ya were, whatever that was, tisn’t to affect who ya be now. Understand?”

“Yes,” Virginia said. “It’s a rule I believe I shall like well.”

By this time they had already begun returning through the corridors, leaving the red glow of the Chasm behind them. The light had left an impression on Virginia’s eyes, though, and the corridor seemed to swim in a faint reddish shade, not unlike when she had been too long in the sun as a human and come into a dark room suddenly. The image had burned itself into her brain as well, a nightmare-like place where she was one of the demons, not one of the damned. Well, perhaps she was, but she would not be on the receiving end of the fire at any rate.

Virginia and Deidre occasionally passed other vampires in the winding halls, but they were few. Those that did usually offered a brief greeting, often paired with a silent assessment of Virginia. Most seemed warily accepting of her, and a few even went so far as to give her looks she recalled from her work.

“I see certain habits don’t die with us,” she said after one male had quite obviously been speaking to her décolletage rather than her face.

“That’d be George,” Deidre said, shaking her head. “Randy one he is. But ye’re right. Our kind takes all manner of pleasure as it suits us, and murder, lovely a pastime as it is, is not the only one we can lust after. Hast lain with one since yer turnin’?”

“Nay,” she said.

“Ye’ll find it changed,” she said, pausing to trade the dimming torch for a new one at yet another juncture of paths. “Yer senses are heightened now, as ya know. Goes for all of it.”

Virginia shrugged. “I’ve no real interest in it for now. The absence is more of a novelty then aught else.”

Deidre laughed loudly, the sound echoing in the tight halls. “As ya will, to be sure. Still, I think ye’ll grow weary of that soon enough. There’s any number of us who’d tumble ya at yer slightest whim. They’ll be several bonny lads and lasses in yer bed afore a year is up, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Lasses?” Virginia asked.

“Aye. Ye’ll find that such petty concerns as that are quite gone. Ye’ll most likely keep whatever yer preference was in life, but ya won’t be adverse to a little dallying on the opposite side from time to time,” Deidre said, finally stopping outside a door.

Virginia frowned. In her whoring days, she’d done any number of unusual things for customers, particularly if extra money was involved… actually, only if extra money was involved, but she’d never particularly enjoyed it when they’d called for two women at a time and she’d been one. On the other hand, she realized, she’d never really particularly enjoyed any of it because none of it had ever been her own idea. There had been the occasional customer who at least had given pleasure to her as well as gotten it, but it was still a case of being owned.

She wondered briefly what it would be like to give or receive in a bed at her own will, with whom she chose, when she chose it. A smile curled her lips, and her eyes glittered wickedly. She didn’t wish it just yet, but she could tell that Deidre’s prophecy would most likely come true, though perhaps not within the year.

Deidre had opened the heavy wooden door in front of them, and Virginia saw through it a large room filled with books, far more than she had ever seen before. Several volumes were stacked on a great oaken table, and she recognized them as the ones from the Master’s ship cabin. They were only a small fraction of the whole collection. Virginia didn’t realize it, but the thousands of books lining the walls from floor to ceiling represented the single largest library in the world at the time.

“Ya read?” Deidre said, reminding her someone was there.

She nodded, still a bit dumbstruck over the size of the collection.

“Good,” Deidre said, “because ya need to know by heart the words for the next ceremony at the Chasm.”

She took a particularly battered, age-worn and stained book from a shelf and put it on a stand in the middle of the room, then drew up a chair nearby.

“Go on with ya then,” she said, settling into the seat. “Read it aloud, and I’ll be correctin’ ya if need be.”

Virginia pursed her lips a moment, then went to the stand and opened the book. While the letters were familiar to her now, they didn’t form any words she knew. She quickly paged through the book, and it was all the same. Nothing looked familiar. Of course, she had known it would be in a foreign tongue, but the sounds were so odd to her ears that it was annoying.

“What part of this is mine to say?” she asked.

“All of it,” Deidre replied. “The ceremonies last about five hours, and they’re said as a chorus.”

“I must memorize five hours worth of words I don’t comprehend,” she said, her mouth hanging open.

“We’ve all done it,” she said, shrugging. “Begin at the beginning.”

Virginia had no idea how many hours passed as she struggled through the book, Deidre correcting her when necessary, which was frequently. By the time the last page had been read, she felt inclined to burn the book as an excuse to never have to read it aloud again. Deidre looked as bored to tears as she was.

“Can not I just mumble as the others speak?” she finally said.

“Nay, ya canna,” Deidre said. “The Master would be most angry with both of us.”

Virginia sighed and closed the book more harshly than was necessary, hoping vainly that it might crumble into dust “accidentally.”

“Tis enough for one day,” Deidre said. “I’ve a mind to sleep. I’ll be after seein’ ya tomorrow eve.”

Virginia sighed in relief and very gladly left the library behind her. Had she been a slight bit less dignified, she would have run down the hall with the gusto of a boy released from school after a particularly long day.

Over a week passed in this way. Virginia was able to learn the phrases fairly quickly, but then she needed to learn the pace and rhythm of the chanting, and by the time that was done she was nearly ready to pull her hair out. Deidre had kept her at it steadily, and Virginia hadn’t breathed fresh air or hunted in so long that she was beginning to feel like a caged animal. Every evening when she awoke, another bound captive was brought in. She’d even tried untying one once in an effort to at least get a bit of fun through a jolly chase, but Deidre had scolded her, saying they had no time to waste. Each night, she came back to her chamber, frustrated from too much mental work and not enough physical movement. Finally, she simply couldn’t take it any longer.

“Deidre,” she said quite calmly after reciting the fiftieth page seven times, “if I do not get leave to walk about the city soon, I believe I am going to become as cracked as an old pot.”

The other vampire snorted, shifting restlessly. “Eh, ye’ve toiled away for too long, and truth be told so have I. A night without work is warranted, I should believe, save, of course, for the sort that involves causing the screaming of various unlucky mortals. You must be extremely cautious that none sees ye as knows ye. Ye can…”

Virginia was gone from the room faster than wind.

“...go,” she finished to the empty chamber.

By this time, Virginia no longer cared about such trivial matters as decorum. Abandoning any pretense of civility, she sped through the maze of passages, shot up the steps of the main chamber so fast she was a brown and blonde blur, tore through the long corridor that eventually became earth, and stood beneath the stone that concealed the entrance, taking a moment to compose herself. It wouldn’t do to hunt in a frenzy, she thought. This needed to be savored.

Cautiously, she climbed the small footholds that had been dug into the wall, then listened for any sign of humans in the alleyway. Hearing nothing but the pattering feet of a cat, she silently raised the stone, setting it to the side and getting to her feet gracefully. The stone was settled into place again with as little sound as possible.

Virginia stood still, relishing the feel of fresh air on her face. Breathing might not be necessary anymore, but stagnant, musty air around her was still uncomfortable and unpleasant. The harsh smells of the city surrounded her, not all of them agreeable, but at least different and stimulating. The sounds of the passing horses, few at this time of night which she knew instinctively to be around the witching hour, jangled in her ears, and the steady thrum of thousands of heartbeats filled the air like wonderful music. She stepped out of the alley, almost overwhelmed by the sheer joy of being above ground again.

It wasn’t until that moment that she truly understood how little she cared for living in the Master’s Court. There were plenty of her own kind, and she supposed that once her schooling was over she would have leisure to do as she wished, but the thought of returning to that underground pit was nauseating. Standing by one of the taverns that was still open and peering in the window, she saw the colors of the people’s clothing dance in the candlelight, and it was then she suddenly realized that everything below ground seemed to be painted in shades of black and gray and brown, never vibrant green or golden yellow or bright red, save for the Chasm itself. She had a sudden desire to buy or steal a gown in every color of the rainbow, but she knew what the Master would say: it was not the garb of a hunter who moved unseen in the shadows.

Her first kill of the night was completely uneventful. A man stumbling home after too much to drink crossed her path, and she left him lying beside the roadway, apparently the victim of robbers who had slit his throat. The thrill of fresh blood, not merely a captive delivered to her but someone she had tracked and caught herself, enlivened her senses to a boiling point, and everything seemed five times clearer. Or perhaps that was the several pints of ale he’d had that were now floating through her system. In either case, she was feeling most merry.

She found herself walking down a street that was unknown to her, one lined with taverns and inns of a more respectable sort than those she had once been familiar with. Most were closed for the evening, locked tight as drums, but a very few still had their windows and doors thrown open to the cool night air, the sounds of laughter and music and the flicker of firelight gushing forth as rich and sweet as the blood from her latest kill. It had been over a year since she had heard proper music, and while the mandolin player she heard through the window was no masquerade ball orchestra as she had once been accustomed to, the notes sounded clear as bells.

It wasn’t the constant work in the Court that was driving her to distraction, she realized. It was the confinement. If she was to live eternally, she wanted to live someplace she could be surrounded by the things she wanted most, not shut forever in a large tomb, rattling from one airless chamber to the next and counting days by the cycles of chants. It almost sounded like a nunnery.

She stared at her hands in the light from the window, noticing the grime that coated her skin. It was normal in the Court, after all. Water was a luxury, and while minions could be sent to fetch it, she’d had no time for of a bath. She’d had no time, no opportunity for any luxury at all. She hadn’t been so filthy since she was a guttersnipe living wild on the streets, except then at least she’d been able to feel the sun and taste the air.

“And feel the bite of hunger in your belly, childe,” she heard softly from behind her.

She whirled round and saw nothing for a moment, but then the cloaked figure of the Master resolved itself from the depth of the blackest shadows.

“I do not wish to be ungrateful, Master,” she said, more than a little unnerved by his ability to read her thoughts.

He merely looked back at her from under the cowl of his robes, two glittering red eyes swimming in a sea of darkness. He said nothing, and the moment stretched between them, the candles in the pub going out at last and leaving the street lit only by moonlight.

“You are angry with me,” she said finally.

A quiet chuckle broke the stillness. “Why should I be?”

“Because I have not abandoned humanity, as you say we should,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder at the pub. “They’re lower than us, and yet…”

“And yet it draws you, this world,” he finished. “You miss it.”

“I do,” she admitted. “The more comfortable bits, at any rate.”

He shook his head slightly, his eyes seeming to look far beyond her. “Youth. It has been a very long time since it has plagued me. Have your studies been fruitful with Deidre?”

“I am learning the chants for the Chasm,” she said.

“Good. The next ceremony shall be three nights hence. I believe you shall enjoy it.”

Virginia tried desperately not to have the thought form in her head that there was almost no chance of that, concerned the Master might read her thoughts once more. It was a disturbing power, and one she had never before realized he possessed.

“I use it seldom,” he said as though in answer. “You need not worry. But that is well beside the point. I need no powers other than observation to see you are not happy in the Court.”

“No, Master,” she admitted.

“Have you never wondered why so many of our Order are absent?” he asked. “You are not to be chained to London for the rest of your existence. You will be free to move at your pleasure, free to travel to all the places of the world, anywhere you wish. The Court will always be your home, childe, and you should stay there a good few years yet ere you roam the world if you are wise, for you have much to learn. But the world belongs to you more so than to these mortals since they stop here but briefly and you will remain for long centuries. In time, you may feel more inclined to live at the Court then you do now. Hot blood will cool somewhat, but for you, my Virginia, that may well be millennia from now. You belong to none but yourself and me, and after you have been well-schooled, I shall give you full freedom.”

Virginia was dumbstruck. The Court still seemed a dark jail to her, but it was no longer a life sentence. When at last she was done there, she could do as she pleased, wherever she chose.

“That has eased you?” he asked.

“Aye,” she said.

“I thought it might,” he said, and his eyes glittered again. “Hast eaten well this eve?”

“Much better than for many days before,” she said. “I have sorely missed the chase.”

“After the ceremony of the new moon, your work will decrease, and then you will have time for such pleasures again. Perhaps even… visiting old friends? Family?” he said, and the glint of fangs flashed in the moonlight. She could easily imagine the cruel smile on his face.

“I believe so, Master,” she said, smiling with the same evil cunning. “I do not wish to be rude.”

“Never that, my childe,” he said with a laugh, then he disappeared back into the shadows so quickly that she was left with a feeling of vertigo.

Virginia returned to the Court an hour or so before sunrise. As the heavy paving stone stuck into place over her head, sending the corridor below back into blackness, she sighed. Patience had never been her strong point, though she could wait if she had to. Still, there was a light now in the future. Travel had never really occurred to her before, at least not of her own free will. Mountains, forests, great cities, all of them could be hers. Granted, she wouldn’t be visiting any deserts in the foreseeable future, but then she’d never particularly wanted to. Sand, sand, and more sand wasn’t her idea of an interesting view from her window.

The next two days followed the same path as before with Deidre drilling her and Virginia wanting to scream from the tedium but succeeding in finishing her work. When at last the sun sank on the third day, Virginia awoke to the sounds of Deidre already in her chamber, tapping her foot impatiently.

“Well, up with ya!” she said loudly as Virginia tried to roll out of bed. “The ceremony begins in two hours, and ye’d best review a mite.”

Virginia groaned and dressed quickly, Deidre throwing questions at her right and left that she blearily answered. Finally, Virginia donned a long black robe over her dress, one that she realized was very similar to the Master’s own cloak, and stood facing the other woman.

“May I eat now?” she asked, rather pettishly.

“Nay,” the woman said. “None are to eat until after all is done.”

“But that’s six hours from now!” she said, making a disgusted face.

“Six and a half, truth and all,” Deidre replied. “But ye’ll be busy enough so that ya shant notice, I expect. For blood’s sake, Virginia, belt not yer robe so tight! Yer goin’ to the Chasm, not tryin’ to display yer figure!”

Virginia rolled her eyes but retied the belt so that it hung loosely. She knew that fashion here seemed to speak otherwise, but she hated black and always had. She’d be glad to strip off the robe at the end of the ceremony and see the comparative colorfulness of her brown dress again.

After what seemed a very long time, Deidre quizzing her all the while, the other woman put on her own robe and opened the chamber door. Others similarly clad were to be seen wandering about in the hallway. Virginia raised her eyebrows. They looked like a collection of Grim Reapers, and she supposed that to humans they were. Still, there was something oddly comic in the effect.

A few moments passed, then a blood-curdling scream echoed through the corridors, and Virginia nearly jumped out of her skin. The bits of chitchat that had floated through the air abruptly stopped, and the vampires formed orderly, straight lines, Deidre bustling Virginia into place ahead of her. Well, Virginia thought, what did I expect as signal? Church bells?

They walked silently along the same path Deidre had shown her to the Chasm, all silent. The human who had been used as a summons had apparently been killed or at least gagged as the noise had stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Virginia wondered briefly whether he had counted as one of the thirteen or not.

As it turned out, he hadn’t. By the time Virginia and Deidre had reached the Chasm, all of the vampires currently at the Court were beginning to space themselves out evenly over the length of the thin ledge. A space had been left open at the Master’s right, and Deidre silently shooed Virginia there, taking a spot a stone’s throw away. Peppered through the group were thirteen vampires who each held one human prisoner. Those who hadn’t yet passed out from the fear inherent in the place were looking about them wide-eyed with terror. Virginia shrugged nonchalantly and slipped into place, looking out over the empty space, watching the vapors from below drift before her, making the air shimmer with blood red.

Once all had found their places, the Master raised a black staff in his hand and cracked it loudly against the ground. This was the cue for the chanting to begin, and Virginia launched into the long ceremony with the rest, her lips almost moving themselves through the unknown words. The sound vibrated through the chamber, and it seemed as though the roiling fire below them bubbled more fiercely than before. At certain times during the proceeding, a human was thrown down into the flames below. Virginia kept count on her fingers and toes, marking off the victims as a sign that the interminable wait was coming to a close. At long last, only one remained, a woman who didn’t even struggle any longer. When she was pushed over the edge and into the fiery air at last, the final words of the chant were spoken, and, to Virginia’s complete surprise, a huge bubble of fire rose into the air in the middle of the Chasm, rising until it was on a level with the vampires though a good distance away, which was a good thing as it exploded suddenly into a million sparks of living fire, orange and yellow and red, ending the ceremony with a profoundly loud blast like a gigantic cannon.

That was a little startling, she thought, trying to return her eyes to their sockets.

She glanced around to see the others breaking their ranks, the air filling with the sounds of trivial chatter once more. Virginia shook her head to try to clear it of the ringing from the explosion, then glanced over at the Master.

“Does that always happen?” she asked.

“If all goes as it should, yes,” he said. “Rather pretty, isn’t it?”

Virginia had just watched the sun explode. Somehow, the word “pretty” really didn’t seem to fit, but she still said, “Aye,” though it sounded a little thin.

“Deidre,” the Master called suddenly. “Come here.”

Deidre walked quickly from her spot and stood before the Master, a nervous expression on her face.

“Aye, Master?” she said.

“Virginia did perfectly in her recitation. You are to be commended,” he said with a smile.

The tension visibly drained from Deidre, and a smile of relief lit her features. “Thank ye, Master. She’s right smart.”

“Most certainly,” he said, glancing back at Virginia. “Deidre, you have had leave to sire at will for over a century now, but know you now that any of your line will now fall under my exclusive protection, and I shall regard a blow levied at them by any of the others to be one at myself.”

“Thank ye,” she said again, curtsying low once more, a look of great pleasure on her face.

“Virginia, you need not spend so much time in schooling now,” the Master said, turning to address his childe. “What do you think you shall do with your time?”

Virginia smiled up at him sweetly, then replied, “I shall take your advice, Master, and visit with those who knew the mortal who once lived in this skin, returning their kindness to her a dozenfold.”

The Master laughed loudly, slapping her shoulder as they left the Chasm behind them. “My dear Virginia, you are a lovely, vicious creature! Be sure to tell me the tale of your visits when you return. But mind you have caution.”

“Aye, Master,” she said, curtseying as the others, then turning back to her chamber, breaking into a run halfway there at the thought of being able to take off the black robe and return to the air above.

That night passed without tremendous incident. The sun rose with the population of London very slightly diminished, but none of any great fame or position had died. Virginia had decided to wait until the following evening before calling on her former acquaintances. She wanted things arranged perfectly, and it would take her a small amount of time to decide what would please her best.

When the next night came, black as a vacant soul, a lithe figure could be seen walking through the shadows of Garden Street. It moved with a strange eagerness at a pace that seemed more in keeping with a hungry beast than a mortal woman, for woman it must be. A glint of gold reflected beneath the light of the moon, making her look as though she had a faint halo around her head.

Aside from these few details gathered from a neighbor who had been unable to sleep and was passing the time gazing out the window, there were no other hints at what could have caused the calamity that befell the Kentfield household. By mid-morning of the next day, all of London had heard of the horrors that had happened on the quiet street. The entire family had been slain, strange wounds found upon their necks. The children were found in their beds, as though sleeping, but the corpses of the master and mistress were discovered sitting at their dinner table, blood pouring from opened throats across it, and Katherine Kentfield’s tongue, which had branded so many with her scathing gossip, was not to be found at all. The murderer was never discovered, but the unknown figure became known in legend as the dark angel, and many believed it was had been the spirit of the witch who had once lived nearby who had come back, claiming vengeance on those who had laughed at her death.

The Master had smiled adoringly at Virginia’s story, patting her cheek fondly after she had finished telling it at his knee. Her grizzly memento of the kill remained in her chambers until it dried to dust and blew away entirely. Garden Street acquired a reputation for being cursed, and the once prosperous place grew desolate in the years that followed. The reputation was not unfounded: it remained a favorite feeding ground of Virginia’s for centuries to come.

Garden Street, though, was not the only place visited with a strange series of killings, but it went far less noticed in the less respectable neighborhood of the leaping houses and taverns. As always remained the case, the rich didn’t bother themselves about the poorer elements, although in this case some of the nobility were counted among the victims. However, as the place where they were found was far from respectable society, the circumstances became buried in the code of polite silence.

The sharp bite of true winter had crept into the air for the first time that November night, and the fire in the main chamber of Martin’s leaping house was stoked a bit higher than usual. The customers were still browsing, the whores still working their wiles with varying degrees of success. The building wasn’t quite so well kept as it had been a few years ago, and the buyers didn’t look quite so prosperous. When Martin had lost his Venus, much of his business had moved to other places. He was a shrewd man, though, and he’d managed to find a few other beauties in the alleys of London. The current attraction was a pretty little wench he had named Helen, a last desperate effort to use the same mythology he’d used with Venus, calling her the “most beautiful of mortals.” Unfortunately, whereas Venus had lived up to her billing, Helen wasn’t in the same league. She was blonde, but of the dishwater variety, and her skin had a few pox marks in the candlelight. More than that, she didn’t have the zest that Venus had possessed in large quantities, holding herself like a broken-down mare rather than a goddess.

Martin had made damn sure of that. Venus’s inability to be crushed had let her get away from him, and he had turned more violent in the time that had passed, whipping the girls for no reason at all other than to keep them in the dirt. Despair sat on the house like a gigantic bird of ill omen, its wings drooping over the filthy windows and its opened beak forever hovering over the necks of its occupants, ready to snap them in two.

Human beings can become accustomed to anything, even the sense of ever-present doom, and so it was that when Virginia looked in the street side window that night, peeping between the edges of moulded curtains drawn to keep the buyers’ privacy from those wandering down the street, the leaping house had fallen into a torpor of stagnation.

Martin sat in his customary chair by the fire, his greedy eyes weighing the size of the purses of the various men as always. He had grown grayer in the time since she had left, and the lines of his face were more bloated from drink. His eyes seemed to have sunken somehow, and by a trick of the firelight, his face resembled a skull.

Just as Deidre had said, she needed no invitation to enter the place. It was a place of business, and even though Martin lived there, only his room would have a barrier around it. The rooms of the girls, on the other hand, would be free. They didn’t live there; they owned nothing, not even a threshold. Silently, Virginia crept unseen to the kitchen. One woman, new since she had left, stood over the table, mincing onions for a stew. Virginia killed her so quickly she had never even been able to ask who the strange blonde woman was.

Still moving in perfect quiet, the sounds of drunken men in the main chamber filling the air, Virginia opened a window, then the back door, carrying a good-sized fire log outside with her from the kitchen woodpile. She closed the door after her and wedged the log firmly into place between the handle and the wall, effectively keeping it from being pulled open from the inside. She then crawled back through the window, landing in silence.

Virginia looked around the room, allowing the moment to reach her. This had been the scene of so much of her life. Being stripped for Martin’s inspection and dressed up like a doll for the enjoyment of the men who came here, becoming a thing; finding Geoffrey had taken Jane and dashing her hopes for ever having a different life; the beatings, careful to bruise only in places the buyers wouldn’t see in the main chamber, delivered for such things as pride or not bringing in enough money; the laying out of the corpses of her sister-whores on the kitchen table after their deaths from disease or ill-use before the short trip to the crossroads; enough pain had filled these walls that they should be bleeding.

And they would.

Virginia drew herself together, reminding herself that she was no longer what she had once been. There was only one master in this house now, and it was she. She retraced her steps, still going unnoticed by keeping to shadows with the ease of a predator, and returned to the main door, throwing the long wooden beam that Martin used as a lock into its slats, and then, with a resounding slam, driving a dagger deeply into the door, trapping the bolt in place.

The sound at last drew the attention of the others, as she had meant it to. The noises from the inner chamber halted, and she could hear Martin making stupid apologies to the men, saying that their servant was feeling ill, although they all knew no such person existed, and therefore he himself would have to mind the door this eve.

“Indeed, whoever it is, he must have great need of company to knock so loud, aye lads?” he said in a laugh, getting noisily to his feet.

Virginia headed him off swiftly, appearing at the entrance to the main chamber before he was halfway across the room. She stood silhouetted against the darkness, her plain brown dress doing very little to make her anything other than a goddess. Helen stared at her from her perch on one of the worn chairs, gaping.

“Venus,” Martin whispered, almost awe-struck. “I knew ye’d be back.”

“And indeed I am, Martin,” she said, walking further into the room, looking from one face to another. Gwen was there still, her knife scar hidden beneath her dress’s long sleeves except for the tip on the back of her hand, but beside her, there were no others she recognized. “What has become of Dinah?”

“She is upstairs already, entertainin’ a lusty young lad,” he said with a smile. “I’d speak with ye in the hall, girl.”

“Truly?” she said, raising an eyebrow and running a finger through the filth on the mantelpiece, flicking it away in disgust. “Why not say what needs saying in the open?”

Martin snorted quietly, then seemed to think the idea had merit. It would show the others who was master in his house. He’d borne the indignity of two of his girls leaving him and making better lives on their own than with him, and the insults and jibes thrown at him had barely abated over the years. Now was his chance to get his own back.

“Fine then, baggage,” he said, drawing himself up to his full height. “Tis better done in the open at any rate. Ye’ve returned after straying, thinkin’ ye had even the smallest chance of survivin’ after ye left my doors. Jane paid for that stupidity with her death, which is on yer head.”

“I see,” she said, looking at him steadily.

“And I’ll not have ye back here save by my own rules, which ye must follow to the letter or else ye’ll wish the streets were yer home again.”

“What would these rules be?” she asked conversationally.

Martin’s face bloomed in fury. She wasn’t begging. She wasn’t cowed. But he knew she wouldn’t be back here unless she had no other choice, that she was so broken she had to return. Virginia saw the light dawn in his eyes, a cold light that said he believed he had called her bluff.

“Ye need not act high and mighty with us, goddess,” he said, grinning maliciously. “I’ll show ye pity, let ye back in the best home ye’ve ever had or will have, but at a cost.”

She tipped her head politely, “Why, most kind of you, good sir, to have pity on the weak.”

“More than ye deserve,” he said, nodding at his own kindness. “But ye need to be shown yer place. Yer to obey, perfectly and without question.”

“Obedience is a goodly virtue,” she said, gazing back at him levelly.

“Tis well,” he said, though his expression faltered a bit. Something didn’t feel right. “Then I declare a festival this night!”

The men cried out in drunkenly happy voices, and Virginia stood in their midst, not moving, watching Martin.

“In celebration of our dear Venus returnin’ home, and to show her hospitality to those who pay for her bread, I order her to lie with as many of ye as wish it, with no charge for this one night!”

The men blinked at this. Martin was not in the habit of generosity, and it took a moment for this thought to slip in completely, but when it did, the cheering shook the ceiling.

“Martin,” she said quietly, but in a voice that seemed to pierce through the very walls, “ye’re trying to teach me humility.”

“Humility is precisely the lesson,” he said, seeming satisfied. “Now, how do ye feel on that?”

Virginia smiled honey-sweet at him. “I believe I shall find my evening with all of ye most pleasant,” she replied with a curtsy.

Martin raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh? Well, now, that’s a good answer from ye, wench.”

“Whom shall I take first?” she asked, her eyes sweeping over the room hungrily.

“Let’s start with dear Sir Atherton,” said Martin, gesturing towards a middle-aged man with a protruding belly who was practically salivating.

“Oh, do let’s,” she said pleasantly, smiling widely at the rather repulsive-looking figure. “I’ve a taste for him.”

She offered the man her hand and led him up the stairs towards the rooms, which at this time were almost all unoccupied as yet. She ushered him into the nearest one, which had once belonged to Jane, and slammed the door behind her.

He never had the chance to scream.

Seconds later, the door opened again, and Virginia exited, looking refreshed. Sir Atherton, however, did not reappear.

“Martin,” she called gaily down the stairs, her steps echoing lightly through the house, “Sir Atherton hath fallen full asleep! Send up to me one more able and less in his cups!”

Martin stared at her from below, her face at the top of the staircase smiling almost benignly at him, and Virginia saw a flash of some sort of suspicion in his eyes, but it was quickly locked away. She knew well enough what he was thinking, what he saw: nothing but a whore. Nothing but one he could control. She had to hide her hands behind her skirts to keep him from seeing them tremble with an entirely different sort of lust than the kind he pretended to inspire.

A young man was sent to her next, and he nearly spoiled the game by catching sight of Sir Atherton’s neck hanging at in impossible angle and screaming in a high-pitched key. Virginia gripped him tightly by the throat, and the quick yank and pop of his spine breaking made the note die away on his lips. She smiled and gave the dead lips a soft bite, mockery of a kiss, then deposited him beside Sir Atherton on the bed.

The noise had brought an unforeseen consequence, though, in the form of a knock on the door.

“What has happened?” asked a familiar voice on the other side, and Virginia smiled in satisfaction.

“Why nothing at all, dear Dinah,” she replied, knowing the sound of her voice would startle the other woman.

As she could have predicted, the door swung open with a vengeance, and Dinah, her face alight with a kind of savage fury, glared at her from the entrance.

“What in hell’s name brings the likes of you back here?” she snarled, having no eyes but for the woman in front of her. “Hath Martin taken you back like the sniveling bit of dun you are? You’ve faded, goddess. Not so pretty as you once were.”

“Indeed,” she said, taking in Dinah’s too-thin face, wasted from illness, her graying hair, and the lines that webbed her face. “And you are so well preserved.”

“Shut your mouth, slut,” she growled. “Get you gone. You’re not wanted here.”

“No?” Virginia said with a pout. “How sad.”

“Sad but only right,” she began, “when you are the most... worthless... thing... ever to... what hath happened to Sir Atherton?” she said, suddenly noticing the body.

“I killed him,” she said simply. “That one too. He was much prettier, but you know that doesn’t matter to a whore really.”

“Killed?” she said, stunned. “But how could...?”

“Dinah,” Virginia interrupted her as she was suddenly far too close to her face, “I always found you a terrible bore.”

As the other woman opened her mouth to scream, Virginia stuck her fist into it, taking a moment to smell the sweet scent of terror pouring from her before ripping her throat out.

“Tis a pity,” she said with a sigh as she put her on the bed with the other three. “One can only kill her once. Still, a goodly mouthful she was.”

“Is all to rights, Venus?” Martin called from the hall.

“Indeed so,” she responded, mimicking the ragged breath that should be happening by now if she were doing as she was supposed to be. “This one is much more enthusiastic than the other is all.”

His footfalls grew dimmer, and she laughed quietly. By the time the next came to her, she drank so deeply that he was dead with amazing speed. She knew that by now Martin must suspect something unless he was drunker than usual. With a shrug, she took the most recent victim and placed him softly beside the other three, then walked through the door and down the stairs, coming to the main chamber again.

“I am growing weary with these,” she said to Martin, and the room became quiet. “There is no spice to them. It is thou I want, no other. Well, mayhaps a few others in addition, but thou most of all.”

Martin’s face screwed itself into a mask of uncomprehending stupidity for a moment, then pure shock lit his features.

“No,” he said with an odd certainty. “No, you don’t. I know ye and yer kind well enough. Ye do naught for naught, and ye hate me, as it should be.”

“Ah, but Martin, I do want thee,” Virginia said, coming closer to him. The other men in the room were oddly silent. All knew something was wrong with this picture. “Shall I strip for thee before these? I am naught but thy mule, thy horse, thy animal to do with as thou wilt, as thou toldest me oft when I lived here, is it not so? I am not to have thoughts or desires of mine own save if they agree with what thou wish, yes?”

Firelight from the hearth flickered over the forms in the rooms, touching them with lambent swirls of light and making the woman speaking, though slight of frame, appear strangely forbidding and even dangerous. Martin stared at her, wondering what plan lurked behind the pretty blue eyes that seemed to smile at him placidly, even benevolently, from her face. Something lurked beneath them, but he wasn’t about to give up yet.

“Fine then,” he said, deciding to take the only course of action he had ever seen fit with his whores: stubborn firmness. “Would the lot of you like to give eyes to a performance of our lovely Venus’s?”

The other prostitutes looked from one to the other in confusion, even mild alarm, but the men seemed to come to the conclusion that old Martin had things well in hand, and if he said all was well, so it would be. Virginia, in the meantime, had deftly slid her dress from her body in a single movement, and before anyone could mark what she had begun to do, she stood entirely naked in the red-gold light of the fire. She was exquisitely beautiful, but an aura of the diabolical seemed to lick over her skin as she stood framed by the flames.

“Twas how thou wished me to be sold that first time, aye?” she said. “Stripped to the skin like a horse at market, forced to display myself for the pleasure of the men, but most of all, so that all would know what Martin owned, body and soul.”

“Should have done it,” he replied, eyes raking her hungrily. “Twould have brought e’en more gold, and twould perhaps have broken ye better.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “but Martin, dost know what the difference is twixt that and this?”

“None at all,” he said firmly.

“Oh, but there is,” she said, smiling more widely. “It was thou who would have had the control then, but now, it is I who hold destinies in my hand.”

“Do ye now, baggage,” he said, laughing. “And how is that so? I can not think how you could be less in power than you are now, stripped before an entire room of men as my trophy.”

“Martin, dear Martin,” Virginia replied, “A fool unto the end.”

Her features began to ripple strangely in the light, and Martin could barely take in a breath as he watched a change come over her face first, leaving her lined almost as in old age, but in a way no mortal had ever been marked. The gargoyles that bordered the churches of London were the only other things he had ever seen that looked like they could be her kin. Veins of blue spread over the skin of her breasts and stomach, down her legs, and her coloring turned ashen.

“Dost thou not like thy goddess?” she asked through teeth so long they brushed her lips. “I am as thou made me. Am I not a pretty lass?”

The room remained in dead silence for less than a heartbeat, and then hell itself broke loose. Virginia gripped the throat of a pretty young wench close to her, and with one hand tore her head from her neck, letting the body topple to the ground. Men and prostitutes alike rushed for the doors, only to find them impassable, and screams lit the air like fire.

It was over soon, far sooner than Virginia had thought possible. Fifteen men, some she had drunk from and others she had torn asunder like a ravening lion, littered the corridors and chambers of the leaping house. The prostitutes she had killed as well, letting their bodies fall as they would and sparing no thought of pity that it was once she in their place, unless she thought it pity to end their existence. Martin, however, she had left alive until the last. He had barricaded himself in his small office with his gold, and the sounds of carnage drifted through the thin walls, making his puffy face grow as white as her own.

She had savored the flavor of his fear for a long minute outside the door before tearing it off its hinges and letting it fall with a resounding crash.

“Let’s not bother with begging, shall we?” she said as she threw him from her. “Oh, well, perhaps a bit of begging would be sweet. How well can you beg, Martin? As well as girl who came to you on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, starved and frozen? Will it move me to pity, think you?”

“Please!” he screamed on his knees. “Mercy!”

“That is a pretty tune,” she said, reaching out a hand to caress his hair as he shuddered on the ground before her, holding his head to her naked thigh for a moment in a gesture that seemed almost protective, “But I was never given mercy, so I have none to spare.”

She wrenched him to his feet and sank her teeth savagely into his throat, drinking so quickly she nearly choked, forcing him to flood her until the screams died away and there was nothing left but an empty husk in her hands.

The leaping house had sixteen rooms. When morning dawned and the neighboring tavern owners and brothel runners discovered what had happened, Martin was found dead in all of them.

When Virginia had returned that morning and told this tale to the Master, he had smiled again, declaring her to be one of the most diverting amusements he had ever encountered in his long years, but scolding her for coming home naked as the wind.

All this, though, was but a prelude to what Virginia had yet to come. Dear Lady Worthshire was to be her next visit, and she had planned a most delightful evening for herself. After conferring with Deidre, it was decided that Lady Alice was to be one of the thirteen at the next gathering at the Abyss. On this night, she went to lay claim to the one who had, so far as she was concerned, begun this so long ago.

Virginia’s arms and legs tingled with power as she strode down the well-remembered street. The scene was playing out on a loop over and over in her mind: the sweetness of her dear aunt’s fear, the taste of blood, the expression her eyes would hold as she slipped into the fire of the abyss, knowing that the child she had wanted dead was now had the power to do whatever she pleased, even destroy her. Virginia smiled with a feeling of wild elation unparalleled even in her torment of Martin.

The only cause for concern was how she would be invited into the house itself. She had planned to perhaps bribe a servant, but when she reached the front door, she found it open. Blinking in astonishment, she noticed a small throng of people wandering about the main hall, the smell of food, but none of the noise and music of a festival. A horrible thought clung to her mind, but she refused to allow it to grow. Taking a deep breath, she put her toe across the threshold and found no barrier to stop her. Her heart fell to her feet.

Moving swiftly yet still blending with the humans, she went up the stairs she had known so well in childhood that she could walk them blindfolded, past the hated portrait of her uncle, up to the rooms that Lady Alice inhabited.

Her aunt lay there on the bed, eyes closed, a faint smell of decay already beginning to haunt the room. She knew that stench well enough, had been the cause of it countless times already.

Virginia clutched her hands at her sides, her jaw tight as drum. It wasn’t possible. It simply wasn’t possible after all that had happened, all that she had suffered, all the waiting and planning and savoring and dreaming of what was to come, that Lady Worthshire had managed to escape her in the only way possible. She was dead, sleeping peacefully, never to have her screams mingle with the vapors of fire in the pit, not to see her little slut of an Abby, her whore niece, drop her into the Chasm as lightly as pebble and watch her burn.

Virginia’s hand traced the cold cheekbone. Her aunt had remained a handsome woman even as she aged, though her face was not so perfect as it had once been. Her hair was flecked with silver, but in the candlelight it made it appear to shine brighter. The flawlessly white hands of the corpse were quietly folded over her breast, the image of an angel of piety and kindness. Her portrait could have hung in church. Virginia knew she had no compulsion to breath, but she found herself on the edge of hyperventilating, and one of the mourners brought a chair.

“She died at dawn this day,” the faceless man said. “Twas peaceful and swift, if that be comfort to thee. We bury the lady on the morrow.”

She stared at the man, then quietly rose and walked away, past the chamber where she had caught pretty young Millicent rutting with the wrong man, down the stairs, and silently into the streets, leaving the house behind her forever. She wandered aimlessly, not hunting but drifting like a wraith, her walking slowly beginning to increase in speed until she was at a run, the buildings of London a blur to her vision, uncaring who saw her impossible abilities or what might befall her for it.

Virginia returned to Master’s court so late that the light of dawn had begun to prickle her skin. She had raced back through the labyrinthine paths until she reached her own chambers, then slammed the door behind her, the hinges nearly breaking in protest. She began to pace frantically, almost as though she had gone out of her mind, then threw herself against the wall and began to pummel it fiercely, the stone staining red from her blood as her fists rained down on it faster and faster, like the galloping of hooves. She cared not at all for the pain, the biting, sharp agony of smashing bone and pulped muscle, and a cry sprang from her throat, unearthly as the wailing of wolves but filled with an anguish so horrifying it was like listening to the screams of the damned in hell.

The door burst open, and Deidre came in, pulling her away from the wall with difficulty and holding her down on the bed as Virginia continued to scream. Two minions appeared fearfully at the door, and Deidre yelled to them.

“Bring the Master!”

They disappeared at once, and she continued to try to control the flailing, bleeding, crazed demon beneath her hands. Faster than she would have thought possible, the Master entered the room, a look of consternation on his ancient face.

“What the hell?” he asked.

“I’d be after knowin’ the same thing, Master,” Deidre said in as polite a voice as she could manage while Virginia continued to claw frantically at the bedclothes.

“Leave us,” he said in a perfectly even voice, and Deidre, not the least bit unhappy to have permission to get out, left in a blink.

Virginia continued tearing the mattress and herself to shreds as the Master walked steadily towards her, then sat on the floor beside the bed.

“You will calm yourself, childe,” he said, again in a tone so still it sounded like the quiet before a snake would strike.

Virginia heard the command, and while her demon raged on, wanting to destroy, to maim, anything, anyone, herself, the room, the Master himself, she managed to open her eyes with a loud, gasping breath. Her shaking was as horrible as it had been, but she looked more human than animal.

With a strangled cry, she threw herself around his neck, sobbing uncontrollably, coiling her legs around him as though she would have liked to simply crawl inside him.

“Hush,” he said softly, gently rocking the bleeding, weeping form in his arms like a human child. “Nothing could erase what was, not even that. Hush, sweet childe. Hush.”

At mid-morning, the minion Deirdre had sent back to Virginia’s chamber to find out the end of the scene looked in the doorway to see their Master still sitting on the floor with his childe on his lap, now wrapped in a tattered blanket, as he quietly sang of nightingales and darkened valleys and stroked her hair.


End file.
